Gradients in biodiversity and speciation

The diversity of life varies predictably with climate and is greatest where it is warm and wet (the humid tropics). But, the question "why" has puzzled biologists for over a century. Recent attention has focused on evolutionary mechanisms, in particular whether speciation rates may vary predictably with climate/latitude, whether such variation in speciation rates can account for higher species richness in tropical environments, and what mechanisms might cause geographical variation in speciation rates. We propose to bring together an interdisciplinary team of ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and paleontologists to address the conceptual issues of how climate interacts with ecological and physiological processes to affect speciation rates. Our goal is to test whether speciation/diversification rates vary with climate/latitude using phylogenetic and paleontological data. However, formidable challenges stand in the way of these tests. Therefore, our group will work to identify ways to meet these challenges and to address methodological issues of how to use phylogenetic analysis, as well as paleontological data, to estimate rates of speciation and evolutionary diversification across geographical gradients.