Stochastic Communities PDF

Features

Presents a novel theory of biodiversity

Employs statistically exact quantitative methods

Establishes the J-distribution as description of natural communities

Corrects some misapplications or misinterpretations of the analysis of biodiversity

Summary

Stochastic Communities presents a theory of biodiversity by analyzing the distribution of abundances among species in the context of a community. The basis of this theory is a distribution called the "J distribution." This distribution is a pure hyperbola and mathematically implied by the "stochastic species hypothesis" assigning equal probabilities of birth and death within the population of each species over varying periods of time. The J distribution in natural communities has strong empirical support resulting from a meta-study and strong theoretical support from a theorem that is mathematically implied by the stochastic species hypothesis.

Author: A. K. Dewdney