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Population fluctuations, power laws and mixtures of lognormal distributions
Author(s) -
Allen A.P.,
Li B.L.,
Charnov E.L.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
ecology letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.852
H-Index - 265
eISSN - 1461-0248
pISSN - 1461-023X
DOI - 10.1046/j.1461-0248.2001.00194.x
Subject(s) - log normal distribution , power law , statistical physics , ecology , population , range (aeronautics) , mixing (physics) , environmental science , physics , mathematics , statistics , biology , quantum mechanics , demography , materials science , sociology , composite material
A number of investigators have invoked a cascading local interaction model to account for power‐law‐distributed fluctuations in ecological variables. Invoking such a model requires that species be tightly coupled, and that local interactions among species influence ecosystem dynamics over a broad range of scales. Here we reanalyse bird population data used by Keitt & Stanley (1998, Dynamics of North American breeding bird populations. Nature , 393, 257–260) to support a cascading local interaction model. We find that the power law they report can be attributed to mixing of lognormal distributions. More tentatively, we propose that mixing of distributions accounts for other empirical power laws reported in the ecological literature.