Systematists, comparative biologists, taxonomists and evolutionary biologists all concern themselves with the evolutionary relationships between animals and plants. Homology is the principle underlying these disciplines. When looking at groups of organisms, similarities between them (homologies) suggest a close common ancestor. For example, human and porcine insulin is very similar in structure (porcine insulin was once used to treat human diabetics). However, there are usually characteristics which would oppose such theories. For example: totally different foetal development, and the...

More often than not, when people think of a neotropical forest, what comes to mind is a rain forest, rather than a dry forest. Just as typically, when they imagine a savanna, they visualize the African plains, rather than those dry woodlands and grasslands found in the Neotropics. These same preconceptions can be found among scientists, as these neotropical biomes receive nowhere near the attention they should - in terms of both research and conservation -considering the amount of land they encompass and the diversity of vegetation they contain.
Neotropical Savannas and Dry Forests: Plant...