Euro-North African Sirenia biodiversity as a response to climate variations
Abstract Earth has a latitudinal biodiversity gradient in which more species inhabit tropical than polar regions. Frequently attributed to seasonality, this ecological pattern is applied to the evolution of the Euro-North African sirenians and its relation to Cenozoic climate change. Climate disruption, changes in seasonality, and geological processes such as sea level variations are statistically tested as primary drivers to explain sirenian evolution and regional (amphi-Mediterranean) sirenian speciation and biodiversity.