ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2023
Explanations for latitudinal diversity gradients must invoke rate variation.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Global patterns are key to understanding macroevolution.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Diversity patterns in terrestrial tetrapod clades are governed by equilibrium dynamics.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Geographic distribution of nematodes in the Atacama is associated with elevation, climate gradients and parthenogenesis.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Global Diversity Patterns are Explained by Diversification Rates and Dispersal at Ancient, Not Shallow, Timescales.Systematic biology · 2025Article
- Biogeographic patterns of modern benthic shallow-water molluscs and the roles of temperature and palaeogeographic legacy.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Regional Climate Drives Spatial Variation in Species Richness in the Most Diverse Family of Neotropical Snakes (Colubroidea: Dipsadidae).Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- The latitudinal variation in amphibian speciation rates revisited.Communications biology · 2025Article
- The macroecology of Mesozoic dinosaurs.Biology letters · 2024Review
- Late Cretaceous ammonoids show that drivers of diversification are regionally heterogeneous.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Biotic interactions and their consequences for macroevolution: learning from the fossil record and beyond.Paleobiology · 2008Article
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1 author.
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Abstract
The latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) describes the pattern of increasing numbers of species from the poles to the equator. Although recognized for over 200 years, the mechanisms responsible for the largest-scale and longest-known pattern in macroecology are still actively debated. I argue here that any explanation for the LDG must invoke differential rates of speciation, extinction, extirpation, or dispersal. These processes themselves may be governed by numerous abiotic or biotic factors. Hypotheses that claim not to invoke differential rates, such as 'age and area' or 'time for diversification', eschew focus from rate variation that is assumed by these explanations. There is still significant uncertainty in how rates of speciation, extinction, extirpation, and dispersal have varied regionally over Earth history. However, to better understand the development of LDGs, we need to better constrain this variation. Only then will the drivers of such rate variation - be they abiotic or biotic in nature - become clearer.
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