@article{f15a587722b645ada3478f638c0984c9,
title = "Cross-scale neutral ecology and the maintenance of biodiversity",
abstract = "One of the first successes of neutral ecology was to predict realistically-broad distributions of rare and abundant species. However, it has remained an outstanding theoretical challenge to describe how this distribution of abundances changes with spatial scale, and this gap has hampered attempts to use observed species abundances as a way to quantify what non-neutral processes are needed to fully explain observed patterns. To address this, we introduce a new formulation of spatial neutral biodiversity theory and derive analytical predictions for the way abundance distributions change with scale. For tropical forest data where neutrality has been extensively tested before now, we apply this approach and identify an incompatibility between neutral fits at regional and local scales. We use this approach derive a sharp quantification of what remains to be explained by non-neutral processes at the local scale, setting a quantitative target for more general models for the maintenance of biodiversity.",
author = "O'Dwyer, {James P.} and Cornell, {Stephen J.}",
note = "Funding Information: J.O.D. acknowledges the Simons Foundation Grant #376199, McDonnell Foundation Grant #220020439, and Templeton World Charity Foundation Grant #TWCF0079/AB47. This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council grant number NE/H007458/1. We thank Ryan Chisholm for comments on an earlier draft, and gratefully acknowledge James Rosindell for permission to use simulated neutral model data generated in collaboration with S.J.C. as a means to test our analytical approximations. The BCI forest dynamics research project was made possible by NSF grants to S.P. Hubbell: DEB #0640386, DEB #0425651, DEB #0346488, DEB #0129874, DEB #00753102, DEB #9909347, DEB #9615226, DEB #9405933, DEB #9221033, DEB #−9100058, DEB #8906869, DEB #8605042, DEB #8206992, DEB #7922197, support from CTFS, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Small World Institute Fund, and numerous private individuals, and through the hard work of over 100 people from 10 countries over the past two decades. The plot project is part the Center for Tropical Forest Science, a global network of large-scale demographic tree plots.",
year = "2018",
month = dec,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1038/s41598-018-27712-7",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "8",
journal = "Scientific Reports",
issn = "2045-2322",
publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
number = "1",
}