Tropical Heat Speeds Up Evolution

摘要

If alien biologists were on an expedition to Earth, it would not take long for them to realize that there are a lot more species in the tropics than there are in temperate regions. "It's the biggest, most obvious pattern in nature," says Len Gillman, an evolutionary ecologist at Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. Why that pattern exists has been a long-standing puzzle. This year, however, Gillman found a possible answer: A warm climate makes life evolve more quickly.