Diversity in tropical rain forests and coral reefs

Proposes that high diversity in forests and reefs is maintained by disturbance at intermediate frequency and intensity, which prevents competitive exclusion without eliminating species that recover slowly.

Studied in

Plantae, Anthozoa

Sample size

synthesis across forest and reef diversity studies

Diversity was argued to peak at intermediate levels of disturbance, with low disturbance permitting dominance by superior competitors and high disturbance permitting only rapid colonisers.

• A hypothesis rather than a test, and the predicted pattern is found in a minority of studies that look for it.
• The terms intermediate, frequency and intensity are not defined in a way that makes the prediction sharp.

• Disturbance

  The idea that diversity peaks at intermediate disturbance is among ecology’s most cited, and it is disputed — not only because the pattern often is not found, but because the mechanism may not produce it.