Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-27-2006
Abstract
An ecological community's species diversity tends to erode through time as a result of stochastic extinction, competitive exclusion, and unstable host-enemy dynamics. This erosion of diversity can be prevented over the short term if recruits are highly diverse as a result of preferential recruitment of rare species or, alternatively, if rare species survive preferentially, which increases diversity as the ages of the individuals increase. Here, we present census data from seven New and Old World tropical forest dynamics plots that all show the latter pattern. Within local areas, the trees that survived were as a group more diverse than those that were recruited or those that died. The larger (and therefore on average older) survivors were more diverse within local areas than the smaller survivors. When species were rare in a local area, they had a higher survival rate than when they were common, resulting in enrichment for rare species and increasing diversity with age and size class in these complex ecosystems.
Publication Source (Journal or Book title)
Science
First Page
527
Last Page
531
Recommended Citation
Wills, C., Harms, K., Condit, R., King, D., Thompson, J., He, F., Muller-Landau, H., Ashton, P., Losos, E., Comita, L., Hubbell, S., LaFrankie, J., Bunyavejchewin, S., Dattaraja, H., Davies, S., Esufali, S., Foster, R., Gunatilleke, N., Gunatilleke, S., Hall, P., Itoh, A., John, R., Kiratiprayoon, S., De Lao, S., Massa, M., Nath, C., Noor, M., Kassim, A., Sukumar, R., Suresh, H., Sun, I., Tan, S., & Yamakura, T. (2006). Nonrandom processes maintain diversity in tropical forests. Science, 311 (5760), 527-531. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1117715