Species diversity

A nice overlap between evolution and ecology is the concept of species diversity. Studying what causes the number of species in a group to increase or decrease is largely the realm of evolution and studying what allows a particular number of species to coexist in any particular habitat is largely the realm of ecology. However, when species get affected by man and are driven to extinction the subject is often of interest to both evolutionary biologists and ecologists.

A nice study reported this week shows that although the loss of species diversity of Tahiti's snails has been high (following the introduction of a predatory snail), the diversity at a larger scale remains because members of each of the major groups (or clades) remain.

'Not much of a consolation, perhaps, but at least in a few hundred thousand years there might once again be the kind of diversity on Tahiti that existed before we arrived.'