On the Origins and Dynamics of Biodiversity: the Role of Chance

Chance is necessary for living systems – from the cell to organisms, populations, communities and ecosystems. It is at the heart of their evolution and diversity. Long considered contingent on other factors, chance both produces random events in the environment, and is the product of endogenous mechanisms - molecular as well as cellular, demographic and ecological. This is how living things have been able to diversify themselves and survive on the planet. Chance is not something to which Li...