The hierarchy of factors predicting the latitudinal diversity gradient.

The numerous explanations for why Earth's biodiversity is concentrated at low latitudes fail to explain variation in the strength and even direction of the gradient through deep time. Consequently, we do not know if today's gradient is representative of what might be expected on other planets or is merely an idiosyncrasy of Earth's history. We propose a hierarchy of factors driving the latitudinal distribution of diversity: (i) over geologically long time spans, diversity is largely predicted by climate; (ii) when climatic gradients are shallow, diversity tracks habitat area; and (iii) historical contingencies linked to niche conservatism have geologically short-term, transient influence at most. Thus, latitudinal diversity gradients, although variable in strength and direction, are largely predictable on our planet and possibly others.

• Publication year

  2022

• Venue

  Trends in Ecology & Evolution

• Publication date

  2022-09-01

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.tree.2022.07.013PMID 36089412
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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