New Frontiers Seminar Series

For much of the past one hundred years, ecologists have tried to explain the patterns of diversity seen across different habitats. This quest has been dominated by research that examined patterns of species richness. Basic theories about the effect of competition, facilitation, predation and disturbance were used to generate predictions about the numbers of species that should occur within habitats. However, richness is not the currency that these basic mechanisms operate with and lack of variation in richness does not mean that ecological mechanisms are unimportant. Rather, species richness is often poorly linked to mechanisms. Instead, ecological processes act on species traits, and not numbers, and by examining patterns of species’ similarities and differences; we gain greater insight into the biological mechanisms influencing ecological assemblages. This paradigm shift in ecology has important implications for conservation strategies and habitat restoration.