Ecological opportunity may facilitate diversification in Palearctic freshwater organisms: a case study on hydrobiid gastropods.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Differences in species richness among phylogenetic clades are attributed to clade age and/or variation in diversification rates. Access to ecological opportunity may trigger a temporary increase in diversification rates and ecomorphological variation. In addition, lower body temperatures in poikilothermic animals may result in decreasing speciation rates as proposed by the metabolic theory of ecology. For strictly freshwater organisms, environmental gradients within a river continuum, linked to elevation and temperature, might promote access to ecological opportunity and alter metabolic rates, eventually influencing speciation and extinction processes. To test these hypotheses, we investigated the influence of environmental temperature and elevation, as proxies for body

SUBMITTER: Delicado D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5907725 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature