© 2005 Society of Systematic Biologists
Historical Bioegeography: An Introduction.—J. V. Crisci, L. Katinas, and P. Posadas. 2003. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA. 264 pp. ISBN 0–674–01059–0. $45.00 hardcover.
Department of Zoology, University of Otago PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand E-mail: jonathan.waters@stonebow.otago.ac.nz
Historical Bioegeography: An Introduction.—J. V. Crisci, L. Katinas, and P. Posadas. 2003. Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA. 264 pp. ISBN 0–674–01059–0. $45.00 hardcover.
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Biogeography — the study of biotic distributions and the processes that generate them — is a multidisciplinary field that has come to incorporate biology, ecology, systematics, evolution, geography, geology, paleontology and genetics. The formative work of Darwin (1872) and Wallace (1876) placed biogeographic research at the center of evolutionary debate, and two developments in the latter half of the 20th century renewed attention on biogeography: the general acceptance of plate tectonic theory, and the development of molecular phylogenetic techniques. Given the wealth of systems, questions, and methods available, it may seem surprising that the biogeographic "community" chiefly comprises enclaves of researchers focused on their own specific methodological or philosophical areas of interest (e.g., panbiogeographers: Craw et al., 1999; cladistic biogeographers: Humphries and Parenti, 1999; phylogeographers: Avise, 2000; and the large number of systematists who attach time to phylogenies to understand the evolution of their group: see recent