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Updated: May 25, 2026

Integrating Remote Sensing with Species Distribution Models; Mapping Tamarisk Invasions Using the Software for Assisted Habitat Modeling (SAHM)
Published on: October 11, 2016
Emergent neutrality leads to multimodal species abundance distributions
Remi Vergnon1, Egbert H van Nes, Marten Scheffer
1Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Group, Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, Lumen (Building 100) Droevendaalsesteeg 3a, PO Box 47, Wageningen 6700 AA, The Netherlands. Remi.Vergnon@wur.nl
Abstract:
Recent analyses of data sampled in communities ranging from corals and fossil brachiopods to birds and phytoplankton suggest that their species abundance distributions have multiple modes, a pattern predicted by none of the existing theories. Here we show that the multimodal pattern is consistent with predictions from the theory of emergent neutrality. This adds to the observations, suggesting that natural communities may be shaped by the evolutionary emergence of groups of similar species that coexist in niches. Such self-organized similarity unifies niche and neutral theories of biodiversity.
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