Stochasticity is a core component of ecology, as it underlies key processes that structure and
create variability in nature. Despite its fundamental importance in ecological systems, the …

A central current debate in community ecology concerns the relative importance of
deterministic versus stochastic processes underlying community structure. However, the …

Understanding the community assembly mechanisms controlling biodiversity patterns is a
central issue in ecology. Although it is generally accepted that both deterministic and …

Understanding the mechanisms controlling community diversity, functions, succession, and
biogeography is a central, but poorly understood, topic in ecology, particularly in microbial …

How the coexistence of many species is maintained is a fundamental and unresolved
question in ecology. Coexistence is a puzzle because we lack a mechanistic understanding …

Understanding the forces shaping ecological communities is of crucial importance for basic
science and conservation. After 50 years in which ecological theory has focused on either …

An important component of the mathematical definition of chaos is sensitivity to initial
conditions. Sensitivity to initial conditions is usually measured in a deterministic model by …

The search for general mechanisms of community assembly is a major focus of community
ecology. The common practice so far has been to examine alternative assembly theories …

In population ecology, there has been a fundamental controversy about the relative
importance of competition-driven (density-dependent) population regulation vs. abiotic …

Independent species fluctuations are commonly used as a null hypothesis to test the role of
competition and niche differences between species in community stability. This hypothesis …