由Stephen Hubbell在2001年首次论述的生物多样性“中性”理论，通过采用认为每个个体和每个物种都有相同的行为方式、与物种互动或物种历史无关的简化假设，成功预测了很多人们所观察到的生态多样性模式。
本期Nature介绍了中性理论的一种新形式，增添了将有性生殖、突变和扩散等因素考虑在内的内容。这一新模型在很多层面上来模拟现实，与从包括巴拿马灌丛到堪萨斯哺乳动物化石在内的材料获得的真实数据非常相符。这些结果还表明，生物多样性可以在没有具体物理障碍的条件下出现——这种情况与在繁忙车流中所观察到的现象相似：只要有交通，就可能发生交通堵塞，并不需要明显的原因。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
Nature 460, 384-387 (16 July 2009) | doi:10.1038/nature08168
Global patterns of speciation and diversity
M. A. M. de Aguiar1,2, M. Baranger1,3, E. M. Baptestini2, L. Kaufman1,4 & Y. Bar-Yam1
1 New England Complex Systems Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
2 Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Unicamp, Campinas, S?o Paulo 13083-970, Brazil
3 University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85719, USA
4 Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
In recent years, strikingly consistent patterns of biodiversity have been identified over space, time, organism type and geographical region1, 2. A neutral theory (assuming no environmental selection or organismal interactions) has been shown to predict many patterns of ecological biodiversity2, 3. This theory is based on a mechanism by which new species arise similarly to point mutations in a population without sexual reproduction. Here we report the simulation of populations with sexual reproduction, mutation and dispersal. We found simulated time dependence of speciation rates, species–area relationships and species abundance distributions consistent with the behaviours found in nature1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. From our results, we predict steady speciation rates, more species in one-dimensional environments than two-dimensional environments, three scaling regimes of species–area relationships and lognormal distributions of species abundance with an excess of rare species and a tail that may be approximated by Fisher's logarithmic series. These are consistent with dependences reported for, among others, global birds4 and flowering plants5, marine invertebrate fossils6, ray-finned fishes7, British birds8, 9 and moths10, North American songbirds11, mammal fossils from Kansas12 and Panamanian shrubs13. Quantitative comparisons of specific cases are remarkably successful. Our biodiversity results provide additional evidence that species diversity arises without specific physical barriers6, 11, 14. This is similar to heavy traffic flows, where traffic jams can form even without accidents or barriers15.
