eScholarship provides open access, scholarly publishing services to the University of California and delivers a dynamic research platform to scholars worldwide. Title: Linking diversity and distribution to understand biodiversity gradients and inform conservation assessments Journal Issue: Frontiers of Biogeography, 6(1) Author: Villalobos, Fabricio , Universidade Federal de Goiás Publication Date: 2014 Publication Info: Frontiers of Biogeography Permalink: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/9vf3h0mv Acknowledgements: I am deeply thankful to Héctor T. Arita for guiding me throughout my PhD studies and opening for me the door to the macroecological world. I also greatly appreciate the confidence and support of Mark E. Olson and Jorge Soberón. Paulina Trejo-Barocio and Gerardo Rodríguez-Tapia were fundamental during my undergraduate and graduate years and I’m immensely grateful to them. I was supported by a doctoral grant from CONACYT, Mexico. Author Bio: Ecology, PostDoctoral Researcher Keywords: species richness, range size, diversity field, range–diversity plots, conservation biogeography, stochastic models Local Identifier: fb_19482 Abstract: Broad-scale patterns of species richness result from differential coexistence among species in distinct regions of the globe, determined by the species’ ranges and their properties such as size, shape and location. Thus, species richness and ranges are inherently linked. These two biodiversity features also yield primary information for conservation assessments. However, species richness and range size have been usually studied separately and no formal analytical link has been established. In my PhD thesis, I applied and extended a recently developed