The Shapes of Phylogenetic Trees of Clades, Faunas, and Local Assemblages: Exploring Spatial Pattern in Differential Diversification

Life on Earth is characterized by strong diversity skewness: related lineages typically show pronounced variation in diversification success, and clades contain hyperdiverse and depauperate subclades. Previous studies have documented diversity skewness only for entire (global) clades. We demonstrate methods for measurement and significance testing of diversity skewness of local assemblages and regional biotas; we illustrate this with an analysis of geographic structure in diversity skewness of primate assemblages. For primates, continental faunas differ in diversity skewness from expectations based on the global phylogeny: South American faunas have significantly low skewness and African faunas have significantly high skewness. However, no local assemblage has diversity skewness different from that expected based on sampling the continental fauna. We also document a latitudinal gradient in diversity skewness for the African assemblages and test for (but do not find) associations of skewness with longitude, local species richness, and net primary productivity. Our data suggest that continental‐scale biogeographic events rather than local‐scale processes have shaped diversity skewness in modern primate faunas.