The biodiversity of the plankton has been interpreted largely through the monocle of competition. The spatial distancing of phytoplankton in nature is so large that cell boundary layers rarely overlap, undermining opportunities for resource-based competitive exclusion. Neutral theory accounts for biodiversity patterns based purely on random birth, death, immigration, and speciation events and has commonly served as a null hypothesis in terrestrial ecology but has received comparatively little attention in aquatic ecology. This review summarizes basic elements of neutral theory and explores its stand-alone utility for understanding phytoplankton diversity. A theoretical framework is described entailing a very nonneutral trophic exclusion principle melded with the concept of ecologically defined neutral niches. This perspective permits all phytoplankton size classes to coexist at any limiting resource level, predicts greater diversity than anticipated from readily identifiable environmental niches but less diversity than expected from pure neutral theory, and functions effectively in populations of distantly spaced individuals.

中文翻译：

---

中性理论与浮游生物多样性

浮游生物的生物多样性主要是通过竞争的单片眼镜来解释的。自然界中浮游植物的空间距离如此之大，以至于细胞边界层很少重叠，从而破坏了基于资源的竞争排斥的机会。中性理论纯粹基于随机出生、死亡、移民和物种形成事件来解释生物多样性模式，通常作为陆地生态学的零假设，但在水生生态学中相对较少受到关注。本综述总结了中性理论的基本要素，并探讨了其对于理解浮游植物多样性的独立效用。描述了一个理论框架，其中包含非常非中性的营养排斥原则与生态定义的中性生态位的概念相结合。这种观点允许所有浮游植物大小类别在任何有限的资源水平上共存，预测的多样性比容易识别的环境利基预期的更大，但比纯中性理论预期的多样性要少，并且在相距较远的个体种群中有效地发挥作用。