Spatial models for species area curves

Abstract

The relationship between species number and area is an old problem in biology. We propose here an interacting particle system--the multitype voter model with mutation--as a mathematical model to study this problem. We analyze the species area curves of this model as the mutation rate $\alpha$ tends to zero. We obtain two basic types of behavior depending on the size of the spatial region under consideration. If the region is a square with area $\alpha^{-r}, r > 1$, then, for small $\alpha$, the number of species is of order $\alpha^{1-r}(\log \alpha)^2$, whereas if $r < 1$, the number of species is bounded.