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Ecology & Environment
Mahesh

13/01/24 07:13 AM IST

Humboldt’s enigma

In News
  • Humboldt suggested there was a relationship between temperature, altitude, and humidity on one hand and the occurrence patterns of species – or their biodiversity – on the other.
Humboldt enigma
  • The world’s tropical areas receive more energy from the Sun because of the earth’s angle of inclination.
  • So the tropics have greater primary productivity, which then facilitates greater diversity: more ecological niches become available, creating more complex ecosystems and greater biological diversity.
  • The proponents of Humboldt’s enigma have held that the earth’s tropical areas by themselves don’t contain all the biodiverse regions, that many areas outside the tropics are highly biodiverse. These places are mountains.
  • A simple way to think of Humboldt’s enigma in India is to consider the biodiversity in our tropical areas, south of the Tropic of Cancer passing through Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
  • These areas are supposed to be the most diverse in the country. The Western Ghats plus Sri Lanka biodiversity hotspot lies in this zone.
Biodiversity in India
  • The history of the earth, its geography, and the climate are the main drivers of mountain diversity.
  • And different biodiversity at different locations is the result of changes in how these factors have intermingled over time and space.
  • We know mountains host two processes that generate biodiversity.
  • First: geological processes, like uplifts, result in new habitats where new species arise, so the habitats are ‘cradles’.
  • Second: species on some climatologically stable mountains persist there for a long time, so these spots are ‘museums’ that accumulate many such species over time.
  • Coastal tropical sky islands (mountains surrounded by lowlands), like the Shola Sky Islands in the Western Ghats, are a good example.
Around the world
  • The northern Andes range – including Chimborazo – is considered the most biodiverse place in the world.
  • If we start from the foothills of the Andes and climb, we’re going to encounter different temperatures and rainfall levels that support everything from tropical evergreen biomes in the lower elevation to the alpine and tundra biomes near the top.
  • Such a large variation over short distances supports the immense biodiversity found in mountain regions – and worldwide.
  • Another critical force in biodiversity formation is geology. The foundations on which mountains are erected often differ from those on which low-elevation regions rest.
  • Scientists have found that the more heterogeneous the geological composition of mountains is, the more biodiverse they are. Around the world, all mountains with high biodiversity have high geological heterogeneity as well, especially in the tropics.
  • Even in tropical regions, where we expect higher biodiversity, some mountains with a lower variety of rocks are relatively less biodiverse.
Challenges
  • In India in particular, several areas are under-studied. We can’t expect to understand a place’s true biodiversity unless we also use modern tools like genetics.
  • For example, why don’t the Eastern Ghats have any endemic passerine birds? The most likely answer is that scientists haven’t studied them for more than a century, especially with modern tools.
  • Some national programmes are trying to address these gaps, including the National Mission on Himalayan Studies, the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem, and the National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Wellbeing.
  • They need to be strengthened, bolstered by the will to support basic research on diversity.
  • Humboldt’s enigma is perhaps one of many puzzles of mountain biodiversity – and our backyards are excellent places to study them, to find answers to global problems of climate and landscape change.
Source- The Hindu

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