Journal ArticleDOI
The Limiting Similarity, Convergence, and Divergence of Coexisting Species
TLDR
The total number of species is proportional to the total range of the environment divided by the niche breadth of the species, which is reduced by unequal abundance of resources but increased by adding to the dimensionality of the niche.Abstract:
1. There is a limit to the similarity (and hence to the number) of competing species which can coexist. The total number of species is proportional to the total range of the environment divided by the niche breadth of the species. The number is reduced by unequal abundance of resources but increased by adding to the dimensionality of the niche. Niche breadth is increased with increased environmental uncertainty and with decreased productivity. 2. There is a different evolutionary limit, L, to the similarity of two coexisting species such that a) If two species are more similar than L, a third intermediate species will converge toward the nearer of the pair. b) If two species are more different than L, a third intermediate species will diverge from either toward a phenotype intermediate between the two.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Mechanisms of Maintenance of Species Diversity
TL;DR: Stabilizing mechanisms are essential for species coexistence and include traditional mechanisms such as resource partitioning and frequency-dependent predation, as well as mechanisms that depend on fluctuations in population densities and environmental factors in space and time.
Journal ArticleDOI
Resource Partitioning in Ecological Communities
TL;DR: To conclude with a list of questions appropriate for studies of resource partitioning, questions this article has related to the theory in a preliminary way.
Journal ArticleDOI
Phylogenies and Community Ecology
TL;DR: A common pattern of phylogenetic conservatism in ecological character is recognized and the challenges of using phylogenies of partial lineages are highlighted and phylogenetic approaches to three emergent properties of communities: species diversity, relative abundance distributions, and range sizes are reviewed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Field experiments on interspecific competition
TL;DR: Competition was found in 90% of the studies and 76% of their species, indicating its pervasive importance in ecological systems, and the Hairston-Slobodkin-Smith hypothesis concerning variation in the importance of competition between trophic levels was strongly supported.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Food Web Complexity and Species Diversity
TL;DR: It is suggested that local animal species diversity is related to the number of predators in the system and their efficiency in preventing single species from monopolizing some important, limiting, requisite in the marine rocky intertidal.
Journal ArticleDOI
Competition, habitat selection, and character displacement in a patchy environment.
TL;DR: It is concluded that in the vicinity of the optimum design the vector (LFe, Lcu, AFe, Ace) cannot be varied in an arbitrary manner.
Journal ArticleDOI
The evolution of bill size differences among sympatric congeneric species of birds
TL;DR: The results of an analysis of bill length of 46 bird families inhabiting temperate, subtropical, and tropical zones are presented, and several models are proposed to explain interfamilial, regional, and intrafamilial differences.