Da-Yong Zhang1, Bo-Yu Zhang2,3, Kui Lin1, Xinhua Jiang1, Yi Tao3, Stephen Hubbell4,5, Fangliang He6, Annette Ostling7
1 State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;
2 School of Mathematical Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;
3 Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China;
4 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 621 Charles E. Young Drive, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1601, USA;
5 Center for Tropical Forest Science, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, PO Box 0843-03092, Panama City, Panama;
6 Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2H1;
7 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, 2005 Kraus Natural Sciences Building, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1048, USA.
Abstract:
Aims: Much recent theory has focused on the role of neutral processes in assembling communities, but the basic assumption that all species are demographically identical has found little empirical support. Here, we show that the framework of the current neutral theory can easily be generalized to incorporate species differences so long as fitness equivalence among individuals is maintained through trade-offs between birth and death.
