A pioneering work, "Species Diversity in Ecological Communities" looks at biodiversity in its broadest geographical and historical contexts. For many decades, ecologists have studied only small areas over short time spans in the belief that diversity is regulated by local ecological interactions. However, to understand fully how communities come to have the diversity they do, and to properly address urgent conservation problems, scientists must consider global patterns of species richness and the historical events that shape both regional and local communities.
The authors use new...