271
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Why are there so many species in the tropics?

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Known for centuries, the geographical pattern of increasing biodiversity from the poles to the equator is one of the most pervasive features of life on Earth. A longstanding goal of biogeographers has been to understand the primary factors that generate and maintain high diversity in the tropics. Many ‘historical’ and ‘ecological’ hypotheses have been proposed and debated, but there is still little consensus. Recent discussions have centred around two main phenomena: phylogenetic niche conservatism and ecological productivity. These two factors play important roles, but accumulating theoretical and empirical studies suggest that the single most important factor is kinetics: the temperature dependence of ecological and evolutionary rates. The relatively high temperatures in the tropics generate and maintain high diversity because ‘the Red Queen runs faster when she is hot’.

          Related collections

          Most cited references176

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: not found
          • Article: not found

          TOWARD A METABOLIC THEORY OF ECOLOGY

            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: not found
            • Article: not found

            Processes and patterns of oceanic nutrient limitation

              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Evolution and the latitudinal diversity gradient: speciation, extinction and biogeography.

              A latitudinal gradient in biodiversity has existed since before the time of the dinosaurs, yet how and why this gradient arose remains unresolved. Here we review two major hypotheses for the origin of the latitudinal diversity gradient. The time and area hypothesis holds that tropical climates are older and historically larger, allowing more opportunity for diversification. This hypothesis is supported by observations that temperate taxa are often younger than, and nested within, tropical taxa, and that diversity is positively correlated with the age and area of geographical regions. The diversification rate hypothesis holds that tropical regions diversify faster due to higher rates of speciation (caused by increased opportunities for the evolution of reproductive isolation, or faster molecular evolution, or the increased importance of biotic interactions), or due to lower extinction rates. There is phylogenetic evidence for higher rates of diversification in tropical clades, and palaeontological data demonstrate higher rates of origination for tropical taxa, but mixed evidence for latitudinal differences in extinction rates. Studies of latitudinal variation in incipient speciation also suggest faster speciation in the tropics. Distinguishing the roles of history, speciation and extinction in the origin of the latitudinal gradient represents a major challenge to future research.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                J Biogeogr
                J. Biogeogr
                jbi
                Journal of Biogeography
                BlackWell Publishing Ltd (Oxford, UK )
                0305-0270
                1365-2699
                January 2014
                16 December 2013
                : 41
                : 1
                : 8-22
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Biology, University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA
                Author notes
                Correspondence: James H. Brown, Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA., E-mail: jhbrown@ 123456unm.edu

                Editor: Jens-Christian Svenning

                Article
                10.1111/jbi.12228
                4320694
                25684838
                3c97a269-1a61-4856-aec1-52d20a21c395
                © 2013 The Authors Joural of Biogeography Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

                This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

                History
                Categories
                Special Papers

                Geography
                ecological interactions,evolutionary rates,janzen–connell dynamics,latitudinal diversity gradient,metabolic theory,red queen,species diversity,tropics

                Comments

                Comment on this article