THE ISSUE

Species diversity generally increases in the tropics but testing theories that explain this phenomenon is challenging. Here we use body size to quantify niches in ecological communities and explore how species diversify towards the equator.

ECOLOGICAL CONTENT

Community ecology, latitudinal diversity gradient, niches, traits, body size

STUDENT-ACTIVE APPROACHES

Think-pair-share, hypothesis development, concept map, interpreting plots, informal group work

STUDENT ASSESSMENTS

Formulate hypotheses, minute paper, and concept map

AUTHORS

John M. Grady^1,2, Quentin Read², Sydne Record¹, Phoebe Zarnetske², Benjamin Baiser³, Kalaina Thorne¹, and Jonathan Belmaker⁴

¹Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA, USA

²Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

³University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

⁴Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

Corresponding author: John M. Grady (jgradym@gmail.com)

DOWNLOADS

• Full Article Text [docx] [pdf]

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank Kate Thibault at NEON for helping us to compile and interpret the small mammal data. We thank S. Record's Biological Exploration course at Bryn Mawr College for their feedback as we piloted an early version of this exercise. NSF grant 1550770, 1550765, and 155075 awarded to S. Record, P. Zarnetske, and B. Baiser, respectively.

CITATION

John M. Grady, Quentin Read, Sydne Record, Phoebe Zarnetske, Benjamin Baiser, Kalaina Thorne, and Jonathan Belmaker. 20 October 2018, posting date. Size, Niches, and the Latitudinal Diversity Gradient. Teaching Issues and Experiments in Ecology, Vol. 14: Figure Set #1 [online]. https://tiee.esa.org/vol/v14/issues/figure_sets/grady/abstract.html