Contents

This book concludes with discussions on the broadest biological patterns we can observe on this Earth, and the reasons for their existence. We also examine smaller scales of variation that would be seen on the landscape and ecosystem levels. In doing so we pick up various topics discussed in previous chapters, such as the roles of time and space as influences on species richness, and expand this view to the global level, showing that the same factors remain important as we scale up our perspective to interactions on Earth. We also look at the paleobiological record again, as we did in Chapter 1 to note the long evolutionary history of insects, but in this section we examine the record for clues on what might be expected as global changes occur, and if predictions are possible.