50-milllion-year-old Canada rivaled tropics in diversity
50-milllion-year-old Canada rivaled tropics in diversity
By Stephanie Pappas /
Livescience.com/ February 22, 2013, 11:41 AM
Fifty million years ago, cool temperatures predominated in western Canada. But new research finds that species in the region were once as diverse as in a modern tropical rain forest.
The reason, according to the new study, is that the temperate regions of the globe once lacked seasons, just as the tropics do today. The findings suggest that although the incredible wealth of life in the modern tropics seems like an outlier now, it is actually the rest of the world that's gone wonky.
"We're living in a time of truncated global biodiversity," study researcher S. Bruce Archibald, a paleontologist at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia told LiveScience.
Seasons and diversity
The study looked at a type of diversity dubbed "beta diversity." This is the difference in species from place to place. Consider a patch of African savanna where zebras, lions and wildebeests live. Now compare that with an area of tropical rain forest that's home to howler monkeys, centipedes and poison dart frogs.
More:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57570747/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Of course, given just how different Earth was 50 million years ago, we definitely won't be repeating that "no real seasons" regime anytime soon, that's for sure.
Certainly, this does give us an interesting insight into how the world's environment operated during that time. 
