What is biogeography?
Biogeography refers to the distribution of various species and ecosystems geographically and throughout geological time and space. Biogeography is often studied in the context of ecological and historical factors which have shaped the geographical distribution of organisms over time.
What are the three main fields of biogeography?
There are three main fields of biogeography: 1) historical, 2) ecological, and 3) conservation biogeography. Each addresses the distribution of species from a different perspective. Historical biogeography primarily involves animal distributions from an evolutionary perspective.
How do biogeographers explain the patterns of life on Earth?
Some biogeographers use an historical approach to explain such patterns by focusing on the organism's ancestors or on environmental change (as climate change or "continental drift"). Others use an ecological approach and focus on an organism's adaptations to, or interactions with the environment.
How does ecological biogeography differ from historical biogeography?
Moreover, ecological biogeography differs from historical biogeography in that it involves the short-term distribution of various organisms, rather than the long-term changes over evolutionary periods.
Why was biogeography developed?
As it was developed, the science of biogeography was meant to answer so many questions that are varied. It was developed so that it can answer some of the questions like why are there so many kinds of animals and plants in the world. It seeks to answer why some of these animals and plants are rare while others are common.
What is the difference between physiography and geography?
Physiography is a description of the features and even phenomena of nature. Most of the physical features of the world cannot be well described unless we use other factors like temperature. Physiography stands for physical geography. What is in physical geography is all the physical features like the mountains, forests/vegetations among others. When we attempt to describer any climatic condition of a place or of a certain region, we use temperature, the level of rainfall/precipitation and the effects that winds may have on it. It therefore translates that we cannot describe most of the physical phenomena without using the other factors mentioned. They interdepend on each other for description of physical phenomena.
What is the subduction zone?
It’s also called a subduction zone. This is a plate margin where one plate will override the other. This forces the other into beneath its mantle. They are boundaries which are in the form of trench. Old oceanic crust will go into these systems as there is new crust formed when the centers are spreading. They are usually locations of strong earthquakes as the action of the plate that is going down interacts with the overriding one. It can also be as a result of volcanic activity. A good place to be associated with it is Japan. The plate that is going down the other will continue to become even hotter. This is because of its proximity to the mantle. The plate will thus melt to form magma. This magma will move upwards through the crust and volcanoes are formed. A good example is the Aleutian Islands.
What is the evolution of the present fauna and flora?
Science asserts that the present fauna and flora are as a result of evolution from past organisms which were not developed as they are today. On the other side of the creation myth, people and especially the Christians believe that the current population of plants and animals are a product of what God created long time ago. Some of the things that are explained in the bible are in total conflict with what science has provided a detailed account on. A good example is the Global Flood during the time of Noah. The Bible says that God instructed Noah who by then was 600 years old to construct an ark. Noah was then supposed to take two of every unclean animal and seven of every clean animal. All food and fresh water was then supposed to be in the ark. Noah and his family were to remain in the ark for six months until the flood waters subsided. This creation story in the book of genesis continues to explain that after the flood waters subsided, Noah, his family and the animals that were released then were the ones who later repopulated the earth. This is in total conflict with the empirical scientists who argue that today there is too much of genetic diversity in the world for us to be consistent that every animal that is land based descended from the few breeding pairs and this is just some few thousands years ago. According to empirical science, some of the species we have today in the planet will evolve locally. This thus means that they are immobile geographically according to scientists. The scientists will ask today how comes the Duckbill platypus ended up only in Australia and not anywhere else in the planet.
What is biogeography in science?
Biogeography is the collective science that incorporates elements from widely disparate disciplines, with a unified aim towards understanding the distribution of plants and animals. It studies all aspects of the adaptations of an organism to its environment, systematically considering the origins, ...
What is biogeography in geography?
Biogeography focuses on understanding the geological, environmental, and historic factors that determine where biodiversity is and how it is different among regions.
How does cladistics relate to biogeography?
The application of cladistics to biogeography has placed significant emphasis on construction of biological-area cladograms, combined with subsequent examination of relationships between terminal taxa and areas of endemism ( Fig. 1 ). In these analyses, congruence between area cladograms of different monophyletic taxa suggests that these organisms share a common evolutionary history. This procedure has led ultimately to the acceptance of vicariance as an alternative hypothesis to explain heretofore many otherwise inexplicable distribution patterns. However, this is not to say that dispersalist models have diminished in importance. On the contrary, dispersal is still considered very important in explaining distributions. But in recent studies, centers of origin are rarely evoked, and dispersal often provides an alternative hypothesis rather than the sole explanation for a given pattern of distribution (see Wiley, 1988 ). Another analytical method called panbiogeography ( Craw et al., 1999 ), which places greater emphasis on congruent distribution tracks ( i.e., generalized tracts) than area cladograms, has also gained popularity as an analytical methodology. When used in combination with phylogenetics, panbiogeography has proven effective for explaining distribution patterns of subterranean animals ( Christiansen and Culver, 1987 ).
How do biogeographers work?
Biogeographers can operate from a short-term perspective, asking how ecological factors and processes of the present or near past influence the distribution of organisms. This is called ecological biogeography. Alternatively, they look at events on the geological timescale, such as plate tectonics, orogenesis, and climatic change that, together with biological movement and extinction shaped the distribution patterns of today over geological time. Speleobiologists are traditionally inclined toward this latter approach known as historical biogeography. This may be partly because caves as habitats are strongly associated with geological history, but also because the really intriguing questions are historic in nature: how did the ancient remipedian crustaceans end up in anchialine caves on both sides of the Atlantic and the eastern Australian coast, and how could ultra-specialized cave hygropetric beetles settle in an area reaching from Italy to Albania. Ecological biogeography of caves, on the other side, deals with topics such as the distribution of cave fauna from the entrance zone to the dark zone, or the effect of nutrient input or temperature on species richness patterns.
What is the oldest and most commonly practiced approach to biogeography?
They include historical or large-scale biogeography and ecological or small-scale biogeography. Historical biogeography is the oldest and most commonly practiced approach and explains distributional patterns of organisms on the basis of their dispersal and/or vicariance over evolutionary time.
Why is biogeography important for caves?
Biogeography of cave life, just like biogeography in general, aims to discover, describe, and understand patterns of geographical distribution of organisms. This includes all scales, from continents to micro locality, and encompasses, besides latitude and longitude, also altitude and depth. As the distribution of cave species varies even at the level of single cave systems, the study of distributions within caves may be considered as cave biogeography, too. There are good reasons why the geographic distribution of cave species deserves special attention. In many respects, caves species are like island species, and these have traditionally played a central role in biogeography as important models for speciation, community assembly, colonization, and evolution of extreme phenotypes. Studying cave species, one can address all of these questions plus many more. Of particular value is the fact that their habitat lies inside geological structural blocks, not on top of them as most other habitats on our planet. Therefore, cave animals, once they have settled inside and adapted to their subterranean habitat, remain confined to it until extinction. They cannot migrate elsewhere to escape changing ecological conditions, and they have inevitably to follow the geotectonic fate of the cave forming rocks, be it horizontal movement of tectonic plates, or vertical uplift or subsidence. As such, obligate cave species are faithful, albeit involuntary tracers of paleogeography and paleoecology.
Why is counting species important in biogeography?
Despite the artificial difficulties with the species concept, quantifying biogeography using species as units is always the first tool ecologists turn to because of its efficiency – counting species is far faster and easier than identifying and tallying populations or piecing together interaction webs.
What is biogeography in science?
Biogeography is a branch of geography that studies the past and present distribution of the world's many animal and plant species and is usually considered to be a part of physical geography as it often relates to the examination of the physical environment and how it affected species ...
What is the field of biogeography?
The field of biogeography can further be broken down into specific studies related to animal populations include historical, ecological, and conservation biogeography and include both phytogeography (the past and present distribution of plants) and zoogeography (the past and present distribution of animal species).
What is the branch of biogeography that uses fossils to show the movement of species across space?
The branch of historical biogeography is called paleobiogeography because it often includes paleogeographic ideas—most notably plate tectonics. This type of research uses fossils to show the movement of species across space via moving continental plates. Paleobiogeography also takes varying climate as a result of the physical land being in different places into account for the presence of different plants and animals.
How can conservation biogeography help restore the natural order of plant and animal life in a region?
Scientists in the field of conservation biogeography study ways in which humans can help restore the natural order of plant and animal life in a region. Often times this includes reintegration of species into areas zoned for commercial and residential use by establishing public parks and nature preserves at the edges of cities.
What is historical biogeography?
Historical biogeography is called paleobiogeography and studies the past distributions of species. It looks at their evolutionary history and things like past climate change to determine why a certain species may have developed in a particular area.
What are the three main fields of biogeography?
Today, biogeography is broken into three main fields of study: historical biogeography, ecological biogeography, and conservation biogeography . Each field, however, looks at phytogeography (the past and present distribution of plants) and zoogeography (the past and present distribution of animals).
What is the study of biomes and taxonomy?
As such, biogeography also includes the study of the world's biomes and taxonomy—the naming of species—and has strong ties to biology, ecology, evolution studies, climatology, and soil science as they relate to animal populations and the factors that allow them to flourish in particular regions of the globe.
What is the definition of biogeography?
Biogeography Definition. Biogeography refers to the distribution of various species and ecosystems geographically and throughout geological time and space. Biogeography is often studied in the context of ecological and historical factors which have shaped the geographical distribution of organisms over time.
What are the subdisciplines of biogeography?
The subdisciplines of biogeography include zoogeography and phytogeography, which involve the distribution of animals and plants, respectively.
How Does Biogeography Support Evolution?
Biogeography provides evidence of evolution through the comparison of similar species with minor differences that originated due to adaptations to their respective environments. Over time, the Earth’s continents have separated, drifted apart, and collided, resulting in the creation of novel climates and habitats. As species adapted to these conditions, members of the same species that had been separated geographically diverge, resulting in the eventual formation of distinct species. This knowledge is important, as by understanding how adaptations occurred in response to changing environments in the past, we can apply this knowledge to the future.
How does ecological biogeography differ from historical biogeography?
Moreover, ecological biogeography differs from historical biogeography in that it involves the short-term distribution of various organisms, rather than the long-term changes over evolutionary periods. Conservation biogeography seeks to effectively manage the current level of biodiversity throughout the world by providing policymakers with data ...
What is historical biogeography?
Historical biogeography primarily involves animal distributions from an evolutionary perspective. Studies of historical biogeography involve the investigation of phylogenic distributions over time. Ecological biogeography refers to the study of the contributing factors for the global distribution of plant and animal species.
Why are islands important for biogeography?
Islands are excellent for the study of biogeography because they consist of small ecosystems that can easily be compared to those of the mainland and other nearby regions. Moreover, since they are an isolated region, invasive species and the associated consequences for other organisms within the ecosystem can be readily studied.
Which of these is an example of biodiversity in support of evolution?
Example: The Galapagos Islands. One of the most famous examples of biodiversity in support of evolution is Charles Darwin’s study of finches on the Galapagos Islands, which resulted in his book On the Origin of Species.
Why is biogeography important?
Today, the distributions and abundance of many species are being adversely affected by human land use and development, so biogeography has become an important science to the conservation of these species and the design of nature reserves.
How do biogeographers explain patterns?
Some biogeographers use an historical approach to explain such patterns by focusing on the organism's ancestors or on environmental change ( as climate change or " continental drift"). Others use an ecological approach and focus on an organism's adaptations to, or interactions with the environment.
What is the study of the distributions of organisms?
Biogeography. Biogeography is the study of the distributions of organisms, both past and present. It is the science that attempts to describe and understand spatial patterns of biodiversity and the variation of those patterns. Some biogeographers use an historical approach to explain such patterns by focusing on the organism's ancestors ...
History of Biogeography
Historical Biography
- Today, biogeography is broken into three main fields of study: historical biogeography, ecological biogeography, and conservation biogeography. Each field, however, looks at phytogeography (the past and present distribution of plants) and zoogeography (the past and present distribution of animals). Historical biogeography is called paleobiogeography and studies the past distribution…
Ecological Biogeography
- Ecological biogeography looks at the current factors responsible for the distribution of plants and animals, and the most common fields of research within ecological biogeography are climatic equability, primary productivity, and habitat heterogeneity. Climatic equability looks at the variation between daily and annual temperatures as it is harder to survive in areas with high vari…
Conservation Biogeography
- In recent years, scientists and nature enthusiasts alike have further expanded the field of biogeography to include conservation biogeography—the protection or restoration of nature and its flora and fauna, whose devastation is often caused by human interference in the natural cycle. Scientists in the field of conservation biogeography study ways i...