Patterns of species richness among clades can be directly explained by the ages of clades or their rates of diversification. The factors that most strongly influence diversification rates remain highly uncertain, since most studies typically consider only a single predictor variable. Here, we explore the relative impacts of macroclimate (i.e., occurring in tropical vs. temperate regions) and mi...

A major goal of evolutionary biology is to explain morphological diversity among species. Many studies suggest that much morphological variation is explained by adaptation to different microhabitats. Here, we test whether morphology and microhabitat use are related in plethodontid salamanders, which contain the majority of salamander species, and have radiated into a striking diversity of micro...

Question: What is the basis for geographic variation in microhabitat use in fence lizards? Hypothesis: Population differences in microhabitat use reflect behavioural plasticity rather than genetic or experiential differences. Organisms: Western fence lizards (Sceloporus occidentalis). Field site: Three sites (desert, valley, and mountain) in southern California, USA. Methods: We compared habita...

Habitat structure can be important in determining habitat preference of animals because it is often closely linked to factors that affect survival and reproduction, such as food availability and predation risk. Here we examine the ways in which microhabitat structure and predation risk affect the habitat preference of wild patas monkeys (Erythrocebus patas). Patas monkeys in Kenya are typically...

Information regarding microhabitat, here defined as small-scale vegetation structure, is often useful in predicting use of habitat by birds. Quantifying microhabitat, however, is expensive and labor intensive compared to assessment of habitat at a larger scale, possibly from remotely sensed imagery. To assess the importance of microhabitat information in constructing predictive models of habita...

The microhabitat preference of caddisfly (Trichoptera) communities was studied in 8 types of microhabitats in a fast-flowing, medium-sized, lowland stream in Latvia. A total 36 caddisfly taxa belonging to 14 families were recorded in microhabitat samples. A PCA biplot of caddisfly taxa abundance in microhabitats showed 3 distinct caddisfly taxa groups: depositional [Limnephilidae Gen. sp., Anab...

Responses to microhabitat are often neglected when ecologists sample animal indicator groups. Microhabitats may be particularly influential in non-passive biodiversity sampling methods, such as baited traps or light traps, and for certain taxonomic groups which respond to fine scale environmental variation, such as insects. Here we test the effects of microhabitat on measures of species diversi...

In 1996, we investigated the female reproductive success of the narrow endemic Erodium paularense in a population with a mixture of rock and lithosol microhabitats. The main purposes of this study were to determine the main factors that affected reproductive success and whether these factors were influenced by differences in the two contrasting microhabitats. In both microhabitats, fruit set wa...

1 Plant species are known to segregate along small-scale flooding gradients. We tested whether differences in flooding duration can also result in genetic differentiation in the clonal species Ranuneu/us replans, which naturally grows in both a lakeside microhabi tat and a landside microhabitat with shorter periods of flooding. 2 We compared traits related to fitness, and clonal life-history tr...

The apparent paradox of multiple coexisting wing pattern mimicry 'rings' in tropical butterflies has been explained as a result of microhabitat partitioning in adults. However, very few studies have tested this hypothesis. In neotropical forests, ithomiine butterflies dominate and display the richest diversity of mimicry rings. We show that co-mimetic species occupy the same larval host-plant s...