Temperate Assumptions: How Where We Work Influences How We Think

Scientists have been observing the natural world for centuries and have long been intrigued by the high biodiversity and complexity of the tropics. They also usually had North American or European-in other words, outsider-perspectives and frequently concluded that the tropics were qualitatively different from the temperate regions in their ecology, evolution, and behavior. In particular, the tropics were seen as having a more benign abiotic environment, which in turn fostered more complex biotic relationships, with increased competition and other interactions. This may or may not be the case. Regardless, these ideas establish the temperate regions of the world as a kind of model system, a norm to which the tropics are compared and seen as different or unusual. The tropics are warmer or more diverse, rather than the temperate zone being cooler or less diverse. Such an attitude makes it difficult both to appreciate the scope of variation in nature and to develop accurate and general models for ecological and evolutionary processes.