Landscapes in Southeast Asia once thought to stifle biological evolution may instead stoke its fires.
Karst ecosystems have been referred to as arks of biodiversity, a term that highlights their biological richness but also implies they merely preserve ancient lineages. These landscapes, with their isolated caves, cliffs and sinkholes, were thought to shelter species from extinction without contributing much to evolution.
But the discovery over the past several years of nearly 200 gecko species in such regions reveals that karsts are far from stagnant. “They’re not museums, but centers of speciation,” says evolutionary biologist Lee Grismer of La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif.
Some geckos from the Cyrtodactylus genus,
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