Macroecology has increasingly identified that many of the patterns under study are not independent of each other. For example at small scales the species-area-relationship is simply a sampling distribution from the species-abundance-distribution. Is it possible to generate a truly unified theory that predicts most macroecological patterns from a few assumptions? This would count as a major step forward if achievable.

As far back as the 1970's Whittaker and Gauch showed that the continuum hypothesis generated many macroecological patterns from a set of simple assumptions (something later analytically solved and tested by McGill and Collins). Recently both neutral theory (sensu Hubbell and Bell) or MaxEnt theory (sensu Harte et al) have achieved the same ends. The work of at least a dozen other authors overlaps with one or more pieces of these three theories. Yet these three theories depend on wildly different mechanism (niche, anti-niche and logic respectively). Moreover these three theories invoke vastly different mathematical machinery and apply at different scales. Although tempting to frame this as a binary decision (which theory is correct?), it is possible, and probably more fruitful for ecology, if we can identify themes and approaches common to this entire body of work.

Results/Conclusions:

I show that all of these theories contain three assumptions in common. I show how these three overlapping assumptions are in fact what produces the ability to explain mutliple macroecological patterns. I present an idea map showing which assumptions lead to explanations of which patterns. I summarize empirical evidence to date for the three core assumptions and their role in producing macroecological patterns. I conclude with suggestions on implications of these results for future work.