Tropical forests are both evolutionary cradles and museums of leaf beetle diversity.

ABSTRACT: The high extant species diversity of tropical lineages of organisms is usually portrayed as a relatively recent and rapid development or as a consequence of the gradual accumulation or preservation of species over time. These explanations have led to alternative views of tropical forests as evolutionary "cradles" or "museums" of diversity, depending on the organisms under study. However, biogeographic and fossil evidence implies that the evolutionary histories of diversification among tropical organisms may be expected to exhibit characteristics of both cradle and museum models. This possibility has not been explored in detail for any group of terrestrial tropical organisms. From an extensively sampled molecular phylogeny of herbivorous Neotropical leaf beetles in the genus Cephaloleia, we

SUBMITTER: McKenna DD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1544154 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature