The DOI matches its Crossref record; 1 of the 1 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Equilibrium Models of Evolutionary Species Diversity and the Number of Empty Niches
Abstract
Evidence from ecological studies indicates that there may be many unoccupied niches in modern ecosystems. To quantify this "emptiness" of adaptive space, a mathematical model of diversification is derived which makes explicit the relationship between maximum species capacity and realized diversity. The proportion of niches empty at equilibrium is a function only of the intrinsic rates of species origination and extinction. Estimates of these rates for eight marine invertebrate groups suggest that the mean proportion of empty niches is somewhere in the range of 12% to 54%. Evolution in such an open adaptive space should be characterized by unremitting taxonomic turnover and continuous faunal change (but only occasional adaptive improvements), and should permit the rapid establishment of new morphospecies. These expectations are qualitatively borne out by the fossil record.
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Citations
Cites
Patterns of taxonomic and ecological structure of the shelf benthos during Phanerozoic time
Valentine, J. W. (1969) · Palaeontological Association · doi:10.5281/zenodo.16226412 · Cited by 251
Self-citation
Cited by
Benton, M. J. (2009) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1157719 · Cited by 663
Dynamics of origination and extinction in the marine fossil record
Alroy, J. (2008) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0802597105 · Cited by 525
The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE): The palaeoecological dimension
Servais, T., Owen, A. W., Harper, D. A. T., Kröger, B., & Munnecke, A. (2010) · Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology · doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2010.05.031 · Cited by 342
A theory of pulse dynamics and disturbance in ecology
Jentsch, A., & White, P. (2019) · Ecology · doi:10.1002/ecy.2734 · Cited by 298
BIOTIC INTERACTIONS AND MACROEVOLUTION: EXTENSIONS AND MISMATCHES ACROSS SCALES AND LEVELS
Jablonski, D. (2008) · Evolution · doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.2008.00317.x · Cited by 294
Metadata
- Authors
- Walker, T. D., & Valentine, J. W.
- Venue
- The American Naturalist
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Published
- 1984-12
- Volume
- 124
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 887-899
- ISSN
- 0003-0147 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-5323
- OpenAlex
- W2088473581
- Cited by
- 204
- References
- 1
- FWCI
- 5.41
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Walker, T. D., & Valentine, J. W. (1984). Equilibrium Models of Evolutionary Species Diversity and the Number of Empty Niches. The American Naturalist. https://doi.org/10.1086/284322
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
