Marine latitudinal diversity gradients, niche conservatism, and out of the tropics and Arctic: climatic sensitivity of small organisms

Aim

The latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) is a consequence of evolutionary and ecological mechanisms acting over long history, and thus is best investigated with organisms that have rich fossil records. However, combined neontological-paleontological investigations are mostly limited to large, shelled invertebrates, which keeps our mechanistic understanding of LDGs in its infancy. This paper aims to describe the modern meiobenthic ostracod LDG and to explore the possible controlling factors and the evolutionary mechanisms of this large-scale biodiversity pattern.

Location

Present-day Western North Atlantic

Taxon

Ostracoda

Methods

We compiled census data from ostracods living in shallow marine environments of the western North Atlantic Ocean. Using these data, we documented the marine LDG with multiple metrics of alpha, beta (nestedness and turnover), and gamma diversity, and we tested whether macroecological patterns could be governed by diffe...