The Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography: "New Theoretical Approaches"

0346488- Hubbell， stephen乔治亚大学生物多样性和生物地理学中性理论：“新理论方法”摘要这项资助代表了物理学家和生态学家之间为期三年的合作，旨在发展生态学中生物多样性及其起源、维持和丧失的更严格和有用的理论。这一合作努力建立在过去两年中出现的新理论发展的基础上，其中一些已经引起了科学界的极大兴趣。这笔拨款是为了开发更好的理论工具，以估计自然景观的物种丰富程度，并了解生态群落是如何组合在一起的。了解生物多样性（这里定义为地球上或地球上任何地区物种的丰度和分布）是一个具有相当实际和基础科学重要性和兴趣的目标，特别是考虑到目前由于栖息地丧失和其他全球变化因素导致的物种灭绝的预计速度。尽管今天科学技术进步了，但令许多人感到惊讶的是，我们仍然不知道地球上有多少物种，甚至不知道最接近的数量级（10倍）。同样，我们对实际灭绝率的理解也很原始，这些灭绝率在很大程度上是基于经验法则的猜测，这些经验法则来源于物种丰富度如何随着采样面积的增加而增加的模式。话虽如此，科学上毫无疑问，我们面临着严重的人为灭绝威胁。迫切需要更好的理论和抽样设计来制定保护和管理物种及其生存所需环境的现实政策。

0346488- Hubbell, StephenUniv of GeorgiaThe Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography: "New Theoretical Approaches"AbstractThis grant represents a three-year collaboration between physicists and ecologists to develop a more rigorous and useful theory for biodiversity and its origin, maintenance and loss, in ecology. This collaborative effort builds on new theoretical developments that have arisen in the last two years, some of which have generated much interest in the scientific community. This grant is an effort to develop better theoretical tools for estimating the species richness of natural landscapes and understanding how ecological communities are put together. Understanding biodiversity, here defined as the abundance and distribution of species on earth or any region of it, is an objective of considerable practical and basic science importance and interest, especially given the current projected rates of species extinction due to habitat loss and other global change factors. Despite the scientific and technological advances of today, it is surprising to many people that we still do not know how many species inhabit the earth, even to the nearest order of magnitude (factor of 10). Likewise, our understanding of actual extinction rates is primitive, and these rates are largely guesstimates based on rules of thumb derived from patterns of how species richness increases with area sampled. This said, there is little scientific doubt that we face a serious anthropogenic extinction threat. Better theory and sampling designs are urgently needed for developing realistic policies for the protection and management of species and the environments they need to survive.