Institute of Integrative and Comparative Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.
Trends Ecol Evol. 2011 Jul;26(7):340-8. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2011.03.024. Epub 2011 May 10.
A decade has now passed since Hubbell published The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography. Neutral theory highlights the importance of dispersal limitation, speciation and ecological drift in the natural world and provides quantitative null models for assessing the role of adaptation and natural selection. Significant advances have been made in providing methods for understanding neutral predictions and comparing them with empirical data. In this review, we describe the current state-of-the-art techniques and ideas in neutral theory and how these are of relevance to ecology. The future of neutral theory is promising, but its concepts must be applied more broadly beyond the current focus on species-abundance distributions.
自 Hubbell 发表《生物多样性和生物地理学的统一中性理论》以来，已经过去了十年。中性理论强调了扩散限制、物种形成和生态漂移在自然界中的重要性，并提供了定量的零假设模型，用于评估适应和自然选择的作用。在理解中性预测并将其与经验数据进行比较方面，已经取得了重大进展。在这篇综述中，我们描述了中性理论的当前最新技术和思想，以及它们与生态学的相关性。中性理论的未来前景广阔，但必须将其概念更广泛地应用于当前对物种丰富度分布的关注之外。
