{"id":166556,"date":"2025-06-08T02:54:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T02:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/166556\/"},"modified":"2025-06-08T02:54:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T02:54:09","slug":"scientists-discover-one-simple-rule-that-seems-to-dictate-how-life-is-organized-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/166556\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Discover One Simple Rule That Seems To Dictate How Life Is Organized On Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

The organization of life on Earth \u2013 from the tiniest flora to colossal fauna<\/a>, from the oceans to the desert to the frozen tundra \u2013 may be governed by one simple rule. That\u2019s the conclusion of a recent study investigating how species are dispersed across the floating rock we call home.<\/p>\n

In every corner of the planet, the researchers find, the majority of species cluster together in small \u201chotspot\u201d areas. The further out you go from these hubs, the fewer species you find.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis pattern suggests that life on Earth may be, to some extent, predictable,\u201d co-author of the study Joaqu\u00edn Calatayud said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s a good thing. This predictability helps us to better understand life on Earth: we can use it to figure out how species have diversified throughout history, and it can offer valuable insight into how ecosystems might fare in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn every bioregion, there is always a core area where most species live. From that core, species expand into surrounding areas, but only a subset manages to persist. It seems these cores provide optimal conditions for species survival and diversification, acting as a source from which biodiversity<\/a> radiates outward,\u201d lead author Rub\u00e9n Bernardo-Madrid explained.<\/p>\n

Although they are small, these core zones seem to have a disproportionate influence on the biodiversity of the entire region, and so conservation<\/a> strategies should prioritize their safeguarding, the researchers add.<\/p>\n

The team studied the spatial organization of terrestrial and marine vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants, totaling more than 30,000 species from across the globe. Given the diversity of lifeforms and the varied environmental and cultural history of each bioregion, you might expect the distribution of species to fluctuate as you move between them \u2013 but the pattern was the same everywhere.<\/p>\n

This is indicative of a general process known as environmental filtering, a key principle in ecology for explaining species distribution \u2013 but until now there had been no empirical evidence of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter whether the limiting factor is heat, cold, drought, or salinity. The result is always the same: only species able to tolerate local conditions establish and persist, creating a predictable distribution of life on Earth,\u201d said Professor Manuela Gonz\u00e1lez-Su\u00e1rez.<\/p>\n

It may be ubiquitous, but it\u2019s not boring. Understanding species distribution across multiple branches of life<\/a> and at a planetary scale will be invaluable in informing the decisions we make to protect our planet in the face of global environmental change.<\/p>\n

The study is published in Nature Ecology & Evolution<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The organization of life on Earth \u2013 from the tiniest flora to colossal fauna, from the oceans to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-166556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114645490993630034","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}