Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

A simple explanation for taxon abundance patterns.

J Chu1, C Adami

  • 1W.K. Kellogg Radiation Laboratory 106-38, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
|December 28, 1999
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Effect of vertical distance between the heart base and the cuff on arterial blood pressure measurements using PetMAP in anaesthetised dogs.

The Journal of small animal practice·2026
Same author

Investigation of the palatine approach as a novel technique to block the canine maxillary nerve: a comparative cadaveric study.

The Journal of small animal practice·2026
Same author

Effect of limb and cuff positioning on measurement of arterial blood pressure with an oscillometry device (PetMAP) in anaesthetized cats.

Veterinary journal (London, England : 1997)·2024
Same author

A retrospective observational cohort study on the postoperative respiratory complications and their risk factors in brachycephalic dogs undergoing BOAS surgery: 199 cases (2019-2021).

The Journal of small animal practice·2024
Same author

Definitive Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy in Early-Stage Solitary Hepatocellular Carcinoma: An Australian Multi-Institutional Review of Outcomes.

Clinical oncology (Royal College of Radiologists (Great Britain))·2023
Same author

Azimuthal Correlations within Exclusive Dijets with Large Momentum Transfer in Photon-Lead Collisions.

Physical review letters·2023

A new discrete branching model explains taxonomic abundance distributions, revealing that deviations from power laws are time-independent and linked to evolutionary traits, not disequilibrium. This model accurately predicts fossil record patterns.

Area of Science:

  • Ecology
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Paleontology

Background:

  • Abundance distributions for taxa above species level often approximate power laws but show significant deviations.
  • Previous explanations for these deviations focused on finite-time effects in continuous-time branching processes.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To propose and validate a simple discrete branching process model for taxonomic abundance distributions.
  • To investigate the causes of deviations from power law distributions in taxonomic abundance.
  • To link evolutionary properties of taxa to their abundance patterns.

Main Methods:

  • Development of a discrete-time branching process model.
  • Analysis of rank-frequency distributions of fossil marine animal orders.
  • Statistical evaluation of model predictions against empirical data.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • The discrete branching model successfully generates observed abundance distributions, including deviations from power laws.
  • Deviations from power law form are demonstrated to be time-independent and determined by evolutionary properties.
  • The model accurately predicts the rank-frequency distribution of fossil marine animal families without free parameters.

Conclusions:

  • Deviations in taxonomic abundance distributions from power laws are inherent to evolutionary processes, not artifacts of disequilibrium.
  • The proposed discrete branching model offers a robust framework for understanding macroevolutionary patterns.
  • The model has implications for species-abundance relationships, evolutionary dynamics, self-organized criticality, and fractal patterns in nature.