The road from distribution to diversity: starting out, getting there, staying alive

Abstract:

The search for the causes of global patterns of diversity is a long-standing pursuit in ecology and evolutionary biology. One of the most widely acknowledged and dominant patterns is the latitudinal gradient in species richness - why do the tropics have so many species? For over a century, hypotheses have focused on environmental factors (such as energy and water), biotic factors (resources, inter-specific interactions) and species–area relationships. The evolutionary history of diversification is now also known to play a significant role in driving patterns of diversity. Finally, the overlap of species ranges deriving from environmental or neutral processes can also affect richness. An alternative approach is to examine the role of environment and evolutionary history on individual species and treat community traits such as richness as emergent properties. Here, I will explore models that combine the effects of environment and species ranges to create null models of distribution and diversity, and compare these with empirical patterns in frogs, reptiles, birds and plants across the Western Ghats.