Journal of Applied Ecology 32:668 (1995):

"...The most fundamental of these [questions] asks why the number of species varies dramatically, but often predictably, between communities and along spatial and temporal gradients. Huston meets this challenge head on. His goal is, he says, to explain the regulation of species diversity. He does this in terms of a 'dynamic equilibrium model'... It will be interesting in the future to see whether his model is vindicated by experimental work and just how successful it is at predicting the diversity of landscapes as well as patches.

This is a very stimulating book for anyone interested in community ecology and anyone who has ever been puzzled by patterns of biological diversity. There are many excellent evaluations of the diversity of different communities.

Huston concludes by making the intriguing suggestion that the inverse correlation between species diversity and the per capita income of people along the latitudinal gradient did not necessarily arise by chance. Instead he proposes that the low standards of living often observed in human populations in the tropics are a consequence of the same factors that result in the high levels of diversity seen in ecological communities. ... Let us hope he can persuade the decision makers he is right."

Anne E. Magurran, author of Ecological Diversity and its Measurement (Princeton University Press, 1988)