Fast demographic traits promote high diversification rates of Amazonian trees.

A novel new RAINFOR paper led by Tim Baker explores the links between tree lifetimes and species diversity. It shows that many clades of short-lived trees show particularly fast diversification rates, suggesting that short lifetimes is a strategy that favours rapid diversification.

There is a nice BBC piece on it here.

Baker, T. R., Pennington, R. T., Magallon, S., Gloor, E., Laurance, W. F., Alexiades, M., Alvarez, E., Araujo, A., Arets, E. J. M. M., Aymard, G., de Oliveira, A. A., Amaral, I., Arroyo, L., Bonal, D., Brienen, R. J. W., Chave, J., Dexter, K. G., Di Fiore, A., Eler, E., Feldpausch, T. R., Ferreira, L., Lopez-Gonzalez, G., van der Heijden, G., Higuchi, N., Honorio, E., Huamantupa, I., Killeen, T. J., Laurance, S., Leaño, C., Lewis, S. L., Malhi, Y., Marimon, B. S., Marimon Junior, B. H., Monteagudo Mendoza, A., Neill, D., Peñuela-Mora, M. C., Pitman, N., Prieto, A., Quesada, C. A., Ramírez, F., Ramírez Angulo, H., Rudas, A., Ruschel, A. R., Salomão, R. P., de Andrade, A. S., Silva, J. N. M., Silveira, M., Simon, M. F., Spironello, W., Steege, H. t., Terborgh, J., Toledo, M., Torres-Lezama, A., Vasquez, R., Vieira, I. C. G., Vilanova, E., Vos, V. A., Phillips, O. L. (2014), Fast demographic traits promote high diversification rates of Amazonian trees. Ecology Letters. doi: 10.1111/ele.12252

Flower of Inga, a high diversity short lifetime genus