Global Diversity Patterns are Explained by Diversification Rates and Dispersal at Ancient, not Shallow, Timescales.

Explaining global species richness patterns is a major goal of evolution, ecology, and biogeography. These richness patterns are often attributed to spatial variation in diversification rates (speciation minus extinction). Surprisingly, prominent studies of birds, fish, and plants have reported higher speciation and/or diversification rates at higher latitudes, where species richness is lower.

Large-scale evolution of body temperatures in land vertebrates.

Body temperature is a crucial variable in animals that affects nearly every aspect of their lives. Here we analyze for the first time largescale patterns in the evolution of body temperatures across terrestrial vertebrates (tetrapods: including amphibians, mammals, birds and other reptiles). Despite the traditional view that endotherms (birds and mammals) have higher body temperatures than ectotherms, we find they are not significantly different.

Parthenogenesis is self-destructive for scaled reptiles.

Parthenogenesis is rare in nature. With 39 described true parthenogens, scaled reptiles (Squamata) are the only vertebrates that evolved this reproductive strategy. Parthenogenesis is ecologically advantageous in the short term, but the young age and rarity of parthenogenetic species indicate it is less advantageous in the long term.