Premium
On the conceptual basis of the self‐thinning rule
Author(s) -
Torres JoséLeonel,
Sosa Vinicio J.,
Equihua Miguel,
Torres Leonel
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
oikos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.672
H-Index - 179
eISSN - 1600-0706
pISSN - 0030-1299
DOI - 10.1034/j.1600-0706.2001.950320.x
Subject(s) - thinning , corollary , basis (linear algebra) , diversity (politics) , mathematics , random variable , darwin (adl) , computer science , mathematical economics , statistics , ecology , discrete mathematics , biology , law , geometry , software engineering , political science
We show a widely accepted proof of the self‐thinning rule offered by Enquist et al. to be mathematically incomplete, as it does not identify the plant mass distributions that satisfy a condition implicitly used in the proof. We propose a method to guide the search for such mass distributions, based on a requirement of maximum mass diversity under the appropriate constraints. This generic method allows construction of a probability density that incorporates the available information on a given stochastic variable, and we illustrate its use through the calculation of a continuous mass distribution for the self‐thinning rule that satisfies the implicit condition mentioned above. We suggest a biological justification of maximum mass diversity, as a corollary to the random and unbiased nature of the source of diversity in Darwin's principle.