Abstract:
Penguins have been receiving a
lot of bad press lately. They are
considered somehow counter,
spare, strange. Unlike most plant and
animal groups, they do not show a
peak of species richness towards the equator and a decline towards the
poles. This more conventional spatial
pattern is conveniently known as the
latitudinal diversity gradient because
of the strong covariance of richness
and other measures of biodiversity that it describes. It is one of the most
venerable, well-documented, and
controversial large-scale patterns in
macroecology (Willig et al. 2003).
