Abstract
Terrestrial ecologists long ago remarked on the richness of the floras and faunas of tropical environments relative to colder climates. The diversification within many specific taxonomic groups is clearly greater in the tropics than in temperate latitudes, both in terrestrial and in marine environments (Fig. 10-1). Low numbers of species are also typical of severe and disturbed habitats. Such observations have spawned an abundant and contentious body of publications that have dealt with three major problems: first, how to quantify the clearly observable differences in diversity, second, how are such differences in taxonomic richness of communities generated and maintained, and third, what do such differences mean ecologically.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Valiela, I. (1995). Taxonomic Structure: Species Diversity. In: Marine Ecological Processes. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4125-4_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4125-4_10
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-2840-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-4125-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive