Latitudinal Patterns of Species Richness in Hard-Bottom Communities

Abstract

Understanding global patterns of biodiversity is a useful goal for ecologists because it has the capacity to provide insights on phenomena such as the spread of invasive species, the control of diseases and the effects of climate change (Gaston 2000) . A number of hypotheses which seek to clarify spatial variation in biodiversity have been explored, including comparisons between biogeographical regions, and variation with spatial scale and along gradients across space (Gaston 2000, 2003 ; Mora et al. 2003 ; Turner 2004) . However, in the marine realm there is still a relative lack of global studies as compared to terrestrial studies (Kuklinski et al. 2006) . While in the last decades large-scale patterns have been acknowledged for some marine taxonomic groups (Stehli and Wells 1971 ; Holmes et al. 1997 ; Roy et al. 1998 ; Giangrande and Licciano 2004 ; Gobin and Warwick 2006) , broader patterns of marine biodiversity are still poorly recognised (Clarke 1992 ; Clarke and Crame 1997 ; Gray 2001) .