Neutral Theory News Today

The second century Alexandrian astronomer and mathematician Claudius Ptolemy had a grand ambition. Hoping to make sense of the motion of stars and the paths of planets, he published a magisterial treatise on the subject, known as the Almagest.

The Antarctic climate-diversity-invasion hypothesis (ACDI) predicts that in Antarctic soil systems, climate change should lead to increases in the abundance and diversity of indigenous assemblages. Where biological invasions have occurred, however, invasive alien species should have negative effects on indigenous faunal assemblages. To assess these predictions, we provide the first systematic ecological survey of the Collembola assemblages of pristine, sub-Antarctic Heard Island (53.1°S, 73.5°...