The island immaturity – speciation pulse model of island evolution: an alternative to the “diversity begets diversity” model.

The article presents an alternative model called the Island Immaturity Speciation Pulse which cites that the opportunities for speciation have a broadly predictable relationship to the life cycle of oceanic islands. As islands mature, both richness and endemism increase in tandem, but as islands decline in their old age, opportunities for speciation diminish, in tandem with a reduced carrying capacity. Numerous analyses of species richness variation provide broad support for the idea of an environmentally-determined carrying capacity (K) for richness on islands.