Law of the jungle

New view of biodiversity and evolution

source: Oliver Barker
New Scientist February 9 2002
Starts p28, 4 pages long

Ecologist, Steve Hubbell, argues that chance explains much of biodiversity. He has moved away from ideas of niche adaptation, and looks instead at factors such as immigration of new species, and the numbers of existing species. Species that are already successful are likely to stay that way, and develop new species. They are also likely to be older. Hubbell’s ideas are controversial among biologists. He has published a book on this topic, called ‘The unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography’.
GN,BC