Understanding the causes of spatial variation in species richness is a major research focus
of biogeography and macroecology. Gridded environmental data and species richness
maps have been used in increasingly sophisticated curve‐fitting analyses, but these
methods have not brought us much closer to a mechanistic understanding of the patterns.
During the past two decades, macroecologists have successfully addressed technical
problems posed by spatial autocorrelation, intercorrelation of predictor variables and non …

Understanding the causes of spatial variation in species richness is a major research focus
of biogeography and macroecology. Gridded environmental data and species richness
maps have been used in increasingly sophisticated curve-fitting analyses, but these
methods have not brought us much closer to a mechanistic understanding of the patterns.
During the past two decades, macroecologists have successfully addressed technical
problems posed by spatial autocorrelation, intercorrelation of predictor variables and non …