why are the tropics so diverse please expaint this queation

why are the tropics so diverse?

please expaint this queation in details.

Solution

Answer:

Added biodiversity in the tropics as compared to the higher latitudes probably stems from the flux of photons in the tropics, but our earth is a dynamic system and thus its far more complicated than that.

Mutations can occur randomly, evolutionarily the strongest contributor is error during DNA replication. This can be argued to be a function of temperature and if so, then temperature plays a small role in DNA copying.

Another contributor would be that of the flux of photons. Photons have the ability to cause mutations and there is a noticeable difference in photon flux between the higher latitudes and the tropics.

The tropics are enormous, spreading across the waistline of the globe. Increasing size provides ample opportunity for geographic separation for groups within a species. In conjunction with this is the fact that this broad band girdling the planet has, overall, fairly constant temperature and humidity.

The tropics also exhibit relatively stable climatic conditions which will result in steady food supplies for animals as animals could specialize on 1 to 5 food sources and they would be available more or less year round.

The richness of tropical rainforests in plant life is perhaps due to high levels of solar energy. The sun lies overhead during the entire year, there is a great deal of light available to support the plants in the lower strata, more than twice as much as is available to a temperate forest. And since plants in the tropics don’t suffer from (low) temperature stress, they can devote their energies to growth and reproduction at even very low light intensities. Light intensities in tropical forests are also very patchy and heterogeneous. Thus, plants living under the tall canopy can specialize in exploiting particular light regimes, many of which are not available in temperate forests. And with plant diversity comes animal diversity, since all of these plants provide food and shelter for animals.

High mean annual temperature, primary productivity, and evapotranspiration rates are probably all involved also, but we do not know whether or not the higher energy levels found in rainforests are causal factors in the generation of biodiversity

The presence of pathogens is a contributing factor but it complex because their related to higher temperatures but they will cause speciations as organism will need to develop the ability to defend against them

Storms and high winds are common in tropical areas, and frequently lead to considerable damage and the formation of fairly large gaps in forests. When the gap in the forest is small (as when one or a few trees fall), pioneer species will normally enter the gap and flourish, eventually being replaced by climax tree species.

Tropical regions are large, as well as topographically complex. As mentioned above, the complexity of the rainforest environment allows for considerable specialization of organisms, and the great size of the tropics allows geographic isolation of groups (incipient species) from each other. The stability of tropical areas, in which there are no great fluctuations of temperature or rainfall, allows survival of these separated groups, so that, over time, isolated groups could diverge, eventually becoming new species (speciation by natural selection).