Tg. Barraclough et al., REVEALING THE FACTORS THAT PROMOTE SPECIATION, Philosophical transactions-Royal Society of London. Biological sciences, 353(1366), 1998, pp. 241-249
What biological attributes of organisms promote speciation, and ultima
tely, species diversity? This question has a long history of interest,
with proposed diversity promoters including attributes such as sexual
selection, ecological specialism and dispersability. However, such id
eas are difficult to test because the time-scale of processes involved
is too great for direct human observation and experimentation. An inc
reasingly powerful solution is to investigate diversity patterns among
extant groups to infer the nature of processes operating during the e
volution of those groups. This approach relies on the use of robust, p
hylogenetically based null models to overcome some of the problems inh
erent in observational inference. We illustrate this area by (i) discu
ssing recent advances in identifying correlates of diversity among hig
her taxa, and (ii) proposing new methods for analysing patterns in spe
cies-level phylogenies, drawing examples from a wide range of organism
s.