The Biology of Rarity: Causes and Consequences of Rare-Common Differences

Part One: Rarity and rare-common differences. Introduction: on the causes and consequences of rare-common differences. Rare-common differences: an overview. What is rarity. Who is rare: Artefacts and complexities of rarity determination. Part Two: Mechanisms creating rare-common differences. Who gets the short bits of the broken stick? Speciation and rarity: separating cause from consequence. How do rare species avoid extinction: A paleontological view. Extinction risk and rarity on an ecological timescale. Population biology and rarity: on the complexity of density dependence in insect-plant interactions. Genetic consequences of different patterns of distribution and abundance. Evolved consequences of rarity. Rarity and evolution: some theoretical considerations. Part Three: Future directions. Predicting and understanding rarity: the comparative approach. Concluding comments. Index.