Digest: Influence of abiotic and biotic factors on interspecific competition and diversification dynamics

Only recently has there been renewed interest in how abiotic and biotic factors could influence the effect of interspecific competition. Graciotti et al. (2025) examined the role of interspecific competition and its effect on diversification dynamics in North American canids by developing models that include ecological, temporal, and spatial overlap between species. They focused on independently assessing abiotic and biotic factors at different temporal scales. The authors found that diversification dynamics were only affected by interspecific competition during early canid radiation and that extinction dynamics were unaffected by increasing competition.