Diversity variation in isolated environments: species-area effects from a stochastic model

We study numerically the colonization and extinctions on islands using a spatially explicit stochastic model with migration and competition between species. We focus on time-dependent effects that are observed when life is eliminated from an island or new islands are coated by isolation from the mainland. The results are consistent with what is observed in nature and can be interpreted in the framework of the theory of island biogeography. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.