Noyce Conference Room
Seminar
  US Mountain Time

Our campus is closed to the public for this event.

John Harte (University of California, Berkeley; SFI External Professor)

Abstract.  Pervasive and predictable patterns are observed in the abundance, distribution, and metabolics of individuals and species, but macroecological theory has largely ignored the analysis of these same patterns at higher taxonomic levels.   Accumulating data on hyper-dominance in tropical tree species, mammalian body size distributions, patterns of rarity in plant communities around the world, and the size-abundance relationship in intertidal invertebrate communities, however, reveal systematic patterns within and across higher taxonomic categories.  I will show that MaxEnt-grounded theory, which successfully predicted macroecological patterns at the species level, is easily extended along taxonomic trees.  The extended theory successfully predicts observed patterns above the species level, without affecting the successful predictions of the original theory at the species level.  The techniques used here to integrate macroecology with taxonomics trees can potentially provide powerful null models of phylogenetic community structure and may provide an approach to integrating ecology and evolution.

Purpose: 
Research Collaboration
SFI Host: 
Jennifer Dunne

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