NCEAS Project 10941

Synthetic macroecological models of species diversity

  • Gotelli, Nicholas
  • Colwell, Robert
  • Rahbek, Carsten

ActivityDatesFurther Information
Working Group6th—8th October 2006Participant List   Agenda
Working Group5th—7th October 2007Participant List  
Working Group11th—13th October 2008Participant List  

Abstract
A major unsolved problem in macroecology and biogeography is the origin and maintenance of species richness gradients. Biogeographers are currently divided into three major camps: those who favor historical or phylogenetic mechanisms, those who favor explanations based principally on geographic patterns of contemporary environmental variables, and those who advocate the incorporation of null model approaches. In the existing catalog of simple null models, species? geographic ranges are randomized within a bounded domain, producing a middomain effect (MDE)?a peak of species richness towards the center of the geographical domain. This working group will seek to develop a novel synthesis of historical, contemporary environmental, and MDE hypotheses, by modeling species? geographic ranges in an environmentally heterogeneous geographical domain, with spatially explicit colonization, range expansion, speciation, and extinction.