Givethree hypotheses for explaining why tropics show greatest levels ofspecies richness.

There arethree different hypotheses proposed by scientists for explainingspecies richness in the tropics.

(1) Tropical latitudes receive more solar energy thantemperate regions, which leads to high productivity and high speciesdiversity.

(2) Tropical regions have less seasonal variations and have amore or less constant environment. This promotes the nichespecialization and thus, high species richness.

(3) Temperate regions were subjected to glaciations during theice age, while tropical regions remained undisturbed which led to anincrease in the species diversity in this region.