Global gradients in vertebrate diversity predicted by historical area-productivity dynamics and contemporary environment.

ABSTRACT: Broad-scale geographic gradients in species richness have now been extensively documented, but their historical underpinning is still not well understood. While the importance of productivity, temperature, and a scale dependence of the determinants of diversity is broadly acknowledged, we argue here that limitation to a single analysis scale and data pseudo-replication have impeded an integrated evolutionary and ecological understanding of diversity gradients. We develop and apply a hierarchical analysis framework for global diversity gradients that incorporates an explicit accounting of past environmental variation and provides an appropriate measurement of richness. Due to environmental niche conservatism, organisms generally reside in climatically defined bioregions, or "evolutionary ar

SUBMITTER: Jetz W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3313913 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature