Relief begets diversity. Mountain landscapes host a rich variety of flora and fauna, engendered by their concentrated diversity of climatic and ecological conditions. Two centuries on from Alexander von Humboldt’s pioneering research in the Tropical Andes, mountains remain fertile ground for studying the interplay between the biological and physical environment and for understanding the evolutionary adaptations that permit survival of animals, plants, and people at higher elevations. Mountains under the sea, too, are magnets for a diversity of life, much of which has yet to be explored and described. Read more.