Abstract
ONE of the axioms of ecology is that the diversity of species is greater at low than at high latitudes. This was appreciated by Alfred Russell Wallace more than a century ago and has been repeatedly demonstrated in the more conspicuous groups of organisms such as trees, birds, and butterflies. Ecologists have produced a variety of theories, none entirely satisfactory, to explain latitudinal gradients in diversity, but an understanding of the phenomenon remains as elusive today as in Wallace's time.
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OWEN, D., OWEN, J. Species diversity in temperate and tropical Ichneumonidae. Nature 249, 583–584 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1038/249583a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/249583a0
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