Final Report Summary - NEOTROPICS (The Past, Present and Future of Neotropical Biodiversity) This project has shed new light into the patterns and processes underlying the outstanding biological diversity found today in the American tropics (the Neotropics). It has resulted in dozens of scientific publications, which provided key insights into the evolutionary history of several groups of plants and animals, the determinants of species richness across different biomes, and the dynamics of speciation, extinction, and migration of organisms. The project has also generated several new tools and methods aimed at helping researchers and students worldwide to deal with various sources of biodiversity data – including species occurrences, fossils, and DNA sequences – in order to address important biological questions. We have paid particular attention to the complexity of natural systems, by incorporating potential sources of errors and by reporting on the precision and accuracy of results. Many students and researchers have been able to participate in the project and contribute to these findings. Although many questions have been addressed and were often answered, several new perspectives have developed, which I aim to tackle in a long-term research program focused on the evolution and fate of biodiversity.
