SHEER persistence, not ecological versatility or an innovative body plan, is the most important reason behind the evolutionary success of beetles, rodents and other highly diverse groups of animals.
This surprisingly simple explanation for biodiversity suggests that biologists may have been looking at the wrong traits in trying to understand the history of life. It also makes the loss of biodiversity today – which snuffs out lineages before they can expand – all the more costly.
Evolutionary biologists Mark McPeek of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and Jonathan Brown of Grinnell College, Iowa, set out to test whether successful orders of…
