New modeling work suggests why nature is more diverse than niche-based ecological theory predicts. The post The Key to Species Diversity May Be in Their Similarities first appeared on Quanta Magazine
More than four decades ago, field ecologists set out to quantify the diversity of trees on a forested plot on Barro Colorado Island in Panama, one of the most intensively studied tracts of forest on the planet. They began counting every tree with a trunk wider than a centimeter. They identified the species, measured the trunks and calculated the biomass of each individual. They put ladders up the…