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Mountains of diversity

A large-scale analysis of bird diversity and evolution on mountains around the globe explores the relationships between elevation, species richness and the rate of formation of new species.
  1. Alexander Zizka

    1. Alexander Zizka is at the Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden, and in the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg.

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  2. Alexandre Antonelli

    1. Alexandre Antonelli is at the Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden, in the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, at the Gothenburg Botanical Garden, and in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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Mountain chains are global centres of biological diversity — they harbour one-third of all terrestrial species1. These places have long fascinated biologists2, but are notoriously difficult to explore and study. Our knowledge of the distribution of species diversity on mountains is incomplete, as is our understanding of how species richness (the total number of species) and the rates of formation of new species (speciation) vary in single mountain ranges. In a paper in Nature, Quintero and Jetz3 tackle these issues by studying the diversity and evolution of birds on the 46 major mountain ranges of the world.

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Nature 555, 173-174 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-02062-6

References

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