Species in a community tend to group together, creating non-random patterns. By using a new model called the negative multinomial distribution, researchers found that the evenness of species abundance in a region is related to the shape parameter. This parameter remains consistent across different partitions of the study area, showing that it reflects the evenness of interspecific abundance. This model helps reconcile debates about how species are distributed at different scales and can be used to study both inter- and intraspecific abundance patterns in a community.