Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 24, 2026

Using Generative Art to Convey Past and Future Climate Transitions
Published on: March 31, 2023
Cradles of diversity are unlikely relics of regional climate stability
Damien A Fordham1, Stuart C Brown2, Tom M L Wigley3
1The Environment Institute and School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia; Center for Macroecology, Evolution, and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, 2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark.
Abstract:
The stability of regional climates on millennial timescales is theorised to be a primary determinant of nearby diversification [1-5]. Using simulated patterns of past temperature change at monthly timescales [6], we show that the locations of climatically stable regions are likely to have varied considerably across and within millennia during glacial-interglacial cycles of the Late Quaternary. This result has important implications for the role of regional climate stability in theories of speciation, because long-term climate refugia are typically presumed to be 'cradles' of diversity (areas of high speciation) only if they remain stable across Milankovitch climate oscillations [1-5], which operate on multi-millennial time scales [7].
Related Concept Videos
Global Climate Change
What is Climate?
Nuclear Stability
To hold positively charged protons together...
RNA Stability
The Eukaryotic Promoter Region
Diversity of Archaea I

