The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and BiogeographyDespite its supreme importance and the threat of its global crash, biodiversity remains poorly understood both empirically and theoretically. This ambitious book presents a new, general neutral theory to explain the origin, maintenance, and loss of biodiversity in a biogeographic context. Until now, biogeography (the study of the geographic distribution of species) and biodiversity (the study of species richness and relative species abundance) have