Trait-based ecology, climate change research and conservation: an environmental space perspective

Ever since Humboldt travelled the world observing dramatic differences in species richness across different climatic zones, scientists have been keenly aware that the environment strongly influences the distribution of species on earth. Given the central role of environment in many ecological and evolutionary hypotheses, why is biodiversity studied predominantly using geographical locations as units of analyses? An alternative approach, studying diversity patterns directly in environmental space and using environmental bins instead of geographic grid cells, is starting to yield new and unexpected insights. Studying biodiversity in environmental space is in its infancy and we believe there is much still to be learned.