Uncovering Species Diversity through Similarities.

Researchers have developed a new model that suggests that the similarities between species may be the key to their coexistence and biodiversity. The model combines the concept of life history, which includes species statistics such as average number of offspring, time until sexual maturity, and lifespan, with the influence of random factors on deterministic interactions among species. The researchers found that certain species could persist alongside each other for long periods even though they were competing for the same resources, and that a complex term called effective population size could describe a kind of complementarity that could exist among species.