Editors Summary

21 April 2005

Speciation: the more the merrier

Understanding why some areas of the Earth accommodate more species than others has long interested evolutionary ecologists and has practical implications for conservation biologists. Islands are the best places to study such things, and classical theory demonstrates that the number of species on an island is, among other things, related to the size of the island and its proximity to other islands. Emerson and Kolm have now identified another factor driving speciation: the number of species present in the first place. Analyses of the arthropod fauna and flowering plant flora of the Canary and Hawaiian Islands supports the new theory: the more species in a given area, the higher the probability of evolutionary change within those species.

Species diversity can drive speciation

Brent C. Emerson and Niclas Kolm

doi: 10.1038/nature03450

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