Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Book Review
  • Published:

A world without competition

Nature volume 412, pages 858–859 (2001)Cite this article

The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography

  • Stephen P. Hubbell
Princeton University Press: 2001. 448 pp. $29.95, £19.95 (pbk); $75, £52 (hbk)

During the past 50 years, physicists have sought a 'unified theory' from which all major categories of forces could be derived. Any physicist sufficiently intrigued by the title of Stephen Hubbell's book to wade through its pages will, however, come away disappointed. This will be partly a result of the constraints on achieving any generality and unification in the field of ecology, and partly because of the limitations of Hubbell's theory. Nevertheless, Hubbell's book contains many interesting ideas and intriguing new findings, and few practising ecologists will fail to get something out of it.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Zoology, University of Toronto, 25 Harbord Street, Toronto, M5S 3G5, Ontario, Canada

    Peter A. Abrams

Authors
  1. Peter A. Abrams
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Abrams, P. A world without competition. Nature 412, 858–859 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35091120

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35091120

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing