Universal ecological patterns in college basketball communities.
The rank abundance of common and rare species within ecological communities is remarkably consistent from the tropics to the tundra. This invariant patterning provides one of ecology's most enduring and unified tenets: most species rare and a few very common. Increasingly, attention is focused...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:c8f5fba538164435a418e88c86092dcc 2023-05-15T18:40:21+02:00 Universal ecological patterns in college basketball communities. Robert J Warren David K Skelly Oswald J Schmitz Mark A Bradford 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0017342 https://doaj.org/article/c8f5fba538164435a418e88c86092dcc EN eng Public Library of Science (PLoS) http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3052306?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0017342 https://doaj.org/article/c8f5fba538164435a418e88c86092dcc PLoS ONE, Vol 6, Iss 3, p e17342 (2011) Medicine R Science Q article 2011 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0017342 2022-12-31T11:21:32Z The rank abundance of common and rare species within ecological communities is remarkably consistent from the tropics to the tundra. This invariant patterning provides one of ecology's most enduring and unified tenets: most species rare and a few very common. Increasingly, attention is focused upon elucidating biological mechanisms that explain these species abundance distributions (SADs), but these evaluations remain controversial. We show that college basketball wins generate SADs just like those observed in ecological communities. Whereas college basketball wins are structured by competitive interactions, the result produces a SAD pattern indistinguishable from random wins. We also show that species abundance data for tropical trees exhibits a significant-digit pattern consistent with data derived from complex structuring forces. These results cast doubt upon the ability of SAD analysis to resolve ecological mechanism, and their patterning may reflect statistical artifact as much as biological processes. Article in Journal/Newspaper Tundra Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles PLoS ONE 6 3 e17342 |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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English |
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Medicine R Science Q |
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Medicine R Science Q Robert J Warren David K Skelly Oswald J Schmitz Mark A Bradford Universal ecological patterns in college basketball communities. |
topic_facet |
Medicine R Science Q |
description |
The rank abundance of common and rare species within ecological communities is remarkably consistent from the tropics to the tundra. This invariant patterning provides one of ecology's most enduring and unified tenets: most species rare and a few very common. Increasingly, attention is focused upon elucidating biological mechanisms that explain these species abundance distributions (SADs), but these evaluations remain controversial. We show that college basketball wins generate SADs just like those observed in ecological communities. Whereas college basketball wins are structured by competitive interactions, the result produces a SAD pattern indistinguishable from random wins. We also show that species abundance data for tropical trees exhibits a significant-digit pattern consistent with data derived from complex structuring forces. These results cast doubt upon the ability of SAD analysis to resolve ecological mechanism, and their patterning may reflect statistical artifact as much as biological processes. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Robert J Warren David K Skelly Oswald J Schmitz Mark A Bradford |
author_facet |
Robert J Warren David K Skelly Oswald J Schmitz Mark A Bradford |
author_sort |
Robert J Warren |
title |
Universal ecological patterns in college basketball communities. |
title_short |
Universal ecological patterns in college basketball communities. |
title_full |
Universal ecological patterns in college basketball communities. |
title_fullStr |
Universal ecological patterns in college basketball communities. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Universal ecological patterns in college basketball communities. |
title_sort |
universal ecological patterns in college basketball communities. |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
publishDate |
2011 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0017342 https://doaj.org/article/c8f5fba538164435a418e88c86092dcc |
genre |
Tundra |
genre_facet |
Tundra |
op_source |
PLoS ONE, Vol 6, Iss 3, p e17342 (2011) |
op_relation |
http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3052306?pdf=render https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203 1932-6203 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0017342 https://doaj.org/article/c8f5fba538164435a418e88c86092dcc |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0017342 |
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PLoS ONE |
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6 |
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3 |
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e17342 |
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1766229686220750848 |