Morales-Castilla, I.

Large scale diversity patterns are the response of organisms to current environmental conditions and past environmental changes. Niche conservatism provides a conceptual framework allowing the integration of current and historical events to explain diversity. This thesis uses four case studies incorporating
contemporary, evolutionary and historical determinants of diversity. To achieve a wide range of representation, the case studies analyze three eco-geographical rules explaining patterns in species richness, body size and range size, for three different taxonomic groups (i.e. reptiles, birds and mammals) and within three geographical regions (i.e. East and South of Africa, the New World, the Globe). Results illustrate how linking evolutionary and historical processes to niche conservatism is key to understanding diversity patterns. Accounting for evidence contained in the fossil record, in palaeoclimatic or palaeo-geographic reconstructions, or expressed by phylogenetic relationships and past dispersal events will enable us to comprehend why Earth’s biota is distributed as it does.