Biodiversity beyond species

When people think about nature, they usually think in terms of species -- whether it be an oak tree, a red squirrel, or a sunflower. Sometimes, ecological studies fall into the same trap and categorize organisms by species when there's a lot more variation going on at the gene or population level -- variation that has big consequences for how species interact with each other and that drives ecosystems. Our study includes a simulation and data from eucalyptus, cottonwood, and spruce trees. We use new statistical methods to analyze both the simulated data and the real data. Taken together, our results show that researchers need to look at low-level variation in natural and experimental populations to tell the whole story.

Quentin D. Read