Latitudinal gradients as scientific tools for psychologists

Explaining latitudinal diversity gradients.

DIFFERENCES IN MEASURED RATES OF SPECIation and extinction among living species are commonly used to explain latitudinal diversity gradients. The logic is straightforward: the higher the net diversification rate (the difference between the speciation and extinction rate), the greater the number of species. In this vein, J. T. Weir and D. Schluter conclude from their recent study of birds and ma...

Latitudinal gradients in species diversity

The increase in species richness or biodiversity that occurs from the poles to the tropics, often referred to as the latitudinal gradient in species diversity, is one of the most widely recognized patterns in ecology. Put another way, localities at lower latitudes generally have more species than localities at higher latitudes. Explaining the latitudinal diversity gradient is one of the great c...

Latitudinal, longitudinal and depth gradients

Incumbency, diversity, and latitudinal gradients

s with Programs 38(7):169. Krug, A. Z., D. Jablonski, and J. W. Valentine. 2008. Species-genus ratios reflect a global history of diversification and range expansion in marine bivalves. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B (published online 13 February 2008). Laptikhovsky, V. 2006. Latitudinal and bathymetric trends in egg size variation: a new look at Thorson’s and Rass’s rules. Marine...

Scientific laws as tools for taxonomy

Many people hold that laws of empirical sciences are general hypotheses whose validity is tested by observations. According to them, these kind of tests are done as follows. Given a law, from a conjunction of this law with some other hypotheses several sentences are deduced. These deduced sentences make assertions about phenomena which should be observed at some specified times and places. Then...