Latitudinal Diversity Gradient in the Changing World: Retrospectives and Perspectives

作者：Yu Zhang, Yi‐Gang Song, Can‐Yu Zhang, Tian‐Rui Wang, Tianhao Su, Pei‐Han Huang, Hong‐Hu Meng, Jie Li · 发表于：Diversity · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.3390/d14050334 · 被引用次数：35 · 研究领域：Species Distribution and Climate Change、Genetic diversity and population structure、Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies

The latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) is one of the most extensive and important biodiversity patterns on the Earth. Various studies have established that species diversity increases with higher taxa numbers from the polar to the tropics. Studies of multicellular biotas have supported the LDG patterns from land (e.g., plants, animals, forests, wetlands, grasslands, fungi, and so forth) to oceans (e.g., marine organisms from freshwater invertebrates, continental shelve, open ocean, even to the deep sea invertebrates). So far, there are several hypotheses proposed to explore the diversity patterns and mechanisms of LDG, however, there has been no consensus on the underlying causes of LDG over the past few decades. Thus, we reviewed the progress of LDG studies in recent years. Although several explanations for the LDG have been proposed, these hypotheses are only based on species richness, evolution and the ecosystems. In this review, we summarize the effects of evolution and ecology on the LDG patterns to synthesize the formation mechanisms of the general biodiversity distribution patterns. These intertwined factors from ecology and evolution in the LDG are generally due to the wider distribution of tropical areas, which hinders efforts to distinguish their relative contributions. However, the mechanisms of LDG always engaged controversies, especially in such a context that the human activity and climate change has affected the biodiversity. With the development of molecular...