Modularity is now generally recognized as a fundamental feature of organisms, one that may
have profound consequences for evolution. Modularity has recently become a major focus of …

Contents Summary 1170 I. Introduction 1170 II. Six key questions 1172 III. Three key
challenges 1177 IV. Conclusions 1181 Acknowledgements 1182 References 1183 …

The tropics are the source of most biodiversity yet inadequate sampling obscures answers to
fundamental questions about how this diversity evolves. We leveraged samples assembled …

Far more species of organisms are found in the tropics than in temperate and polar regions,
but the evolutionary and ecological causes of this pattern remain controversial 1, 2. Tropical …

Bayesian analysis of macroevolutionary mixtures (BAMM) has recently taken the study of
lineage diversification by storm. BAMM estimates the diversification-rate parameters …

ABSTRACT Spiders (Order Araneae) are massively abundant generalist arthropod
predators that are found in nearly every ecosystem on the planet and have persisted for over …

Species richness varies widely across extant clades, but the causes of this variation remain
poorly understood. We investigate the role of diversification rate heterogeneity in shaping …

Snakes of the cosmopolitan family Viperidae comprise around 329 venomous species
showing a striking heterogeneity in species richness among lineages. While the subfamily …

Summary The Andean mountains of South America are the most species‐rich biodiversity
hotspot worldwide with c. 15% of the world's plant species, in only 1% of the world's land …

Bayesian analysis of macroevolutionary mixtures (BAMM) is a statistical framework that uses
reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo to infer complex macroevolutionary dynamics of …