Breadth of the Wild: global patterns of niche across latitude in the marine realm

A widely recognized pattern in ecology is the latitudinal diversity gradient: increasing biodiversity with decreasing latitude. However, why there are fewer animals at the poles than in the tropics remains poorly understood. The latitude niche-breadth hypothesis (LNB) suggests that stable climates of the tropics allow for increased specialization (smaller niche), which in turn allows for more species to occupy the total available niche space. At the same time, the highly dynamic climate of the poles drives the evolution of generalists that can adapt to a wide range of conditions (larger niche), limiting the number of species that can occupy the total niche space. While the fundamental question of “What drives species richness?” on land remains debated, it is even less understood in the marine environment. The oceans are characterized by high species mobility and dispersal, movement into the depths and across latitude, and variations in temperature driven by water stratification in addition to seasonality. The difficulties of monitoring such an immense, dynamic ecosystem have limited the LNB hypothesis from being formally tested in the marine realm, and only recently have modern tools become widely available to do so. TBC

Faculty Supervisor:

Nigel Hussey

Student:

Partner:

University of Southampton

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Windsor

Program: