What is rarity?

An exploration of the differences between rare and common organisms and a framework can be generated which provides some common foundation for interpreting the resultsof different studies and thence for comparing them is generated.

Abstract

The rare hold a curious fascination. A bizarre variety of objects considered to be rare are avidly sought and collected, studied and catalogued, bought and sold. The extent to which this general enthusiasm for rarity is manifest within the field of population and community biology is perhaps debatable. The practical issues of conservation aside, studies tend predominantly to be concerned with species which would not widely be considered as rare (Kunin and Gaston, 1993; Gaston, 1994a). Nonetheless, concepts of rarity are applied extensively in the relevant literatures, and indeed might be argued to pervade them. They are used in contexts as disparate as sampling, community structure and foraging theory. What, however, do we mean by rarity, in the context of population and community biology? At the outset of an exploration of the differences between rare and common organisms, we would do well to explore the definition of the term. In so doing a framework can be generated which provides some common foundation for interpreting the resultsof different studies and thence for comparing them.KeywordsRange SizeRare SpeciesConservation BiologyAmerican NaturalistBiological ConservationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.