Journal
ECOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 16, Issue 9, Pages 1177-1185Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/ele.12154
Keywords
constraints; distribution of wealth; feasible set; hollow curve; macroecology; MaxEnt; species abundance distribution
Categories
Funding
- US National Science Foundation [DEB-0953694]
- Amazon Web Services
- Division Of Environmental Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences [0953694] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The species abundance distribution (SAD) is one of the most intensively studied distributions in ecology and its hollow-curve shape is one of ecology's most general patterns. We examine the SAD in the context of all possible forms having the same richness (S) and total abundance (N), i.e. the feasible set. We find that feasible sets are dominated by similarly shaped hollow curves, most of which are highly correlated with empirical SADs (most R-2 values > 75%), revealing a strong influence of N and S on the form of the SAD and an a priori explanation for the ubiquitous hollow curve. Empirical SADs are often more hollow and less variable than the majority of the feasible set, revealing exceptional unevenness and relatively low natural variability among ecological communities. We discuss the importance of the feasible set in understanding how general constraints determine observable variation and influence the forms of predicted and empirical patterns.
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