Matorral

The Same Answer, Five Times Over: Convergent Evolution and the Paradox of Animal Diversity in the Mediterranean-Climate World

Across five geographically isolated Mediterranean-climate zones — the Mediterranean Basin, the California chaparral, the Chilean matorral, the South African fynbos, and the South Australian mallee — unrelated plant lineages have independently arrived at the same structural and biochemical solutions to summer drought and periodic fire. Why plants converge so dramatically while animals diversify turns out to illuminate something fundamental about the relationship between environment, evolution, and the structure of life.