title: Species distributions and area relationships.
abstract: The well-known species-area relationship is one of many scaling laws, or allometries, in ecology and biology that have received much attention over the years. We present a new derivation of this relationship based on Yule׳s theory of evolution of species. Using definitions of mutation rates, our analysis yields species-area exponents that are in close agreement with previously observed values.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia.
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.affiliation: School of Botany, University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia; Biomathematics Unit, Department of Zoology, Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, P.O. Box 39040, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel. Electronic address: tamsin.lee@maths.ox.ac.uk.
authors.forename: T E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: School of Botany, University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia.
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: McCarthy
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D003710:Demography; D017753:Ecosystem; D049810:Genetic Speciation; D008954:Models, Biological; D059645:Mutation Rate; D013045:Species Specificity
keywords: Mutations; Scaling exponents; Yule distribution