Work out how the different literatures on competition kernels thread together

[richfitz]

As suggested by @markwestoby in EDG

[markwestoby]

the point being that there could be a well-received TREE paper or other commentary that explained this effectively to a wider audience

the two main threads are the "emergent neutrality" models stemming from Scheffer and Van Nes 2006 plus Holt commentary, and the literature on competition kernels along trait axes leading up especially to Leimar et al 2013

the key phrases are

• "continuous coexistence"
• multimodal abundance distributions [along trait axes]
• emergent neutrality

and I would add coping with asymmetric competition kernels in community models

the content of a commentary would be (a) to describe the history of theory over the past 10 years or so (in context of the general state of limiting-similarity theory) -- working along a literature flow-diagram (b) to summarize what appears killed or nailed by recent developments (Barabas et al 2013, Leimar et al 2013) (c) and especially to point to the importance of continuous coexistence provided one understands that it doesn't need to be a global property of communities, rather that it is capable of popping up in particular parts of the fitness landscape and adding a bunch of species with near-neutral dynamics just in those parts, other parts of the overall community having quite different dynamics

[richfitz]

In contrast with #16, this one is more about the history of how people have thought about these problems, #16 is specific issues that are needed for the paper.

[dfalster]

Good progress in whiteboard sessions. Also ppt version of the above from @markwestoby