14 DAY TRIAL // According to the conclusions of a new scientific investigation, it would appear that one of the main reasons why such biodiversity is present in tropical regions is the fact that these areas benefit from around-the-year constant temperatures. Experts believe that this is the main factor promoting the emergence of new species, allowing for thousands upon thousands of animals and plants to share the same habitats. The new work sheds doubts on previous ideas, which held that intense sunlight and high temperatures were the main promoters of biodiversity, LiveScience reports.
Finding the answer to this riffle has fascinated biologists for many years. Discovering what promotes this phenomenon is extremely important for developing new ways of protecting it. At this point, global warming is acting squarely on the only factor promoting biodiversity, and now researchers know this. They can develop new approaches to protecting the multitude of species at the Earth's tropical regions, using the new data on temperatures at their disposal. In order to arrive at this conclusion, researchers at the Harvard University looked at insect diversity around the planet.
They investigated a number of locations at different latitudes, as well as samples collected from various layers of the fossil record. This was done in order to develop a historical perspective on the issue. The team found that, millions of years ago, the planet was a lot more diverse than it is today. This was due to the fact that the Earth experienced steadier temperatures around the year. In other words, the planet experienced a lower global variation. As the differences between the poles and the equatorial regions increased, the number of species that roamed the Earth decreased.
“The latitudinal diversity gradient has been recognized for 150 years as one of the most general observations in nature, and has produced more explanatory hypotheses than nearly any other observation. We show that when most of today's organisms were diversifying, up through the Eocene [about 56 million to 34 million years ago], the world lacked pronounced seasonality, more like today's tropics, even in areas where the temperature was low,” says Harvard biologist Brian D. Farrell.
“It appears it's not the heat of the tropics that promotes diversity; it's the more recent seasons of the temperate zone that depress diversity,” he adds. Farrell is also the co-author of a new study detailing the findings, which is published in the August issue of the esteemed scientific journal Paleobiology.