Towards a theory of biodiversity

摘要

Humans are wreaking havoc on the planet, and the result is a continuing mass extinction of species. Yet there is little understanding of the various ecological effects of this loss of biodiversity. An initial requirement is to work out how an ecological community is assembled in the first place, and on page 384 of this issue de Aguiar et al. offer an advance in tackling this formidable task by extending an explanatory approach to biodiversity known as neutral theory.