Journal ArticleDOI
How many species are there on Earth
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TLDR
Current answers to the factual question posed in the title are surveyed and the kinds of information that are needed to make these answers more precise are reviewed.Abstract:
This article surveys current answers to the factual question posed in the title and reviews the kinds of information that are needed to make these answers more precise. Various factors affecting diversity are also reviewed. These include the structure of food webs, the relative abundance of species, the number of species and of individuals in different categories of body size, along with other determinants of the commonness and rarity of organisms.read more
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Toward a metabolic theory of ecology
James H. Brown,James H. Brown,James F. Gillooly,Andrew P. Allen,Van M. Savage,Van M. Savage,Geoffrey B. West,Geoffrey B. West +7 more
TL;DR: This work has developed a quantitative theory for how metabolic rate varies with body size and temperature, and predicts how metabolic theory predicts how this rate controls ecological processes at all levels of organization from individuals to the biosphere.
Journal ArticleDOI
Quantifying biodiversity: procedures and pitfalls in the measurement and comparison of species richness
TL;DR: A series of common pitfalls in quantifying and comparing taxon richness are surveyed, including category‐subcategory ratios (species-to-genus and species-toindividual ratios) and rarefaction methods, which allow for meaningful standardization and comparison of datasets.
Journal ArticleDOI
Estimating Terrestrial Biodiversity through Extrapolation
TL;DR: The importance of using 'reference' sites to assess the true richness and composition of species assemblages, to measure ecologically significant ratios between unrelated taxa, toMeasure taxon/sub-taxon (hierarchical) ratios, and to 'calibrate' standardized sampling methods is discussed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Animal species diversity driven by habitat heterogeneity/diversity: the importance of keystone structures
Jörg Tews,Ulrich Brose,Volker Grimm,Katja Tielbörger,Matthias C. Wichmann,Monika Schwager,Florian Jeltsch +6 more
TL;DR: It is shown that ecological effects of habitat heterogeneity may vary considerably between species groups depending on whether structural attributes are perceived as heterogeneity or fragmentation, and possible effects may also vary relative to the structural variable measured.
Journal ArticleDOI
Microbial biogeography : putting microorganisms on the map
Jennifer B. H. Martiny,Brendan J. M. Bohannan,James H. Brown,Robert K. Colwell,Jed A. Fuhrman,Jessica L. Green,M. Claire Horner-Devine,Matthew D. Kane,Jennifer Adams Krumins,Cheryl R. Kuske,Peter J. Morin,Shahid Naeem,Lise Øvreås,Anna-Louise Reysenbach,Val H. Smith,James T. Staley +15 more
TL;DR: Current evidence confirms that, as proposed by the Baas-Becking hypothesis, 'the environment selects' and is, in part, responsible for spatial variation in microbial diversity, but recent studies also dispute the idea that 'everything is everywhere'.
References
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Journal Article
The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information
TL;DR: The theory of information as discussed by the authors provides a yardstick for calibrating our stimulus materials and for measuring the performance of our subjects and provides a quantitative way of getting at some of these questions.
Book
The magical number seven plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information
TL;DR: The theory provides us with a yardstick for calibrating the authors' stimulus materials and for measuring the performance of their subjects, and the concepts and measures provided by the theory provide a quantitative way of getting at some of these questions.
Book
Resource competition and community structure
TL;DR: This book builds a mechanistic, resource-based explanation of the structure and functioning of ecological communities and explores such problems as the evolution of "super species," the differences between plant and animal community diversity patterns, and the cause of plant succession.
Journal ArticleDOI
Homage to Santa Rosalia or Why Are There So Many Kinds of Animals
TL;DR: The address of the president of a society, founded largely to further the study of evolution, at the close of the year that marks the centenary of Darwin and Wallace's initial presentation of the theory of natural selection.
Journal ArticleDOI
On the Relationship between Abundance and Distribution of Species
TL;DR: The general relationships between abundance and distribution developed here eventually should contribute to the understanding of the biogeography, population genetics, and evolution of species as well as the ecological attributes of populations and communities.