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Science 17 June 2005:
Vol. 308. no. 5729, pp. 1752 - 1753
DOI: 10.1126/science.1113416
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Perspectives

MACROEVOLUTION:
Seeds of Diversity

Douglas H. Erwin

The question of which forces drivebiological diversity has challenged ecologists and evolutionary biologists for decades. In his Perspective, Erwin discusses an analysis of plants and arthropods in Hawaii and the Canary Islands by Emerson and Kolm, recently published in Nature. This suggests that species begat new species as community complexity increased. A similar process may explain the fossil record of diversity.

The author is in the Department of Paleobiology, MRC-121, National Museum of Natural History, Post Office Box 37012, Washington, DC 20013, USA. Email: erwind{at}si.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)