Biodiversity hotspots in Earth’s mountain ranges suggest a strong connection between topographic development and biological processes. However, it remains unclear whether high biodiversity in mountain ranges is an evolutionary response to the rate of relief generation during mountain building. Focusing on small mammals, such as rodents, we used coupled landscape-biological simulations to show that biodiversity increases with the magnitude and rate of tectonic uplift. This relationship, visible in depositional lowlands over millions of years, underscores the considerable role of mountain building in shaping past and present terrestrial biodiversity. Our results provide insights into the influence of topographic changes on evolutionary processes, offering a potential link between mountain formation and paleodiversity records.