Anyone interested in comparative biology or the history of science will find this myth-busting work genuinely fascinating. It draws attention to the seminal studies and important advances that have shaped systematic and biogeographic thinking. It traces concepts in homology and classification from the 19th century to the present through the provision of a unique anthology of scientific writings from Goethe, Agassiz, Owen, Naef, Zangerl and Nelson, among others.

To unravel the complex shared history of the Earth and its life forms, biogeographers analyze patterns of biodiversity, species distribution, and geological history. So far, the field of biogeography has been fragmented into divergent systematic and evolutionary approaches, with no overarching or unifying research theme or method. In this text, Lynne Parenti and Malte Ebach address this discord and outline comparative tools to unify biogeography. Rooted in phylogenetic systematics, this comparative biogeographic approach offers a comprehensive empirical framework for discovering and deciphering the patterns and processes of the distribution of life on Earth. The authors cover biogeography from its fundamental ideas to the most effective ways to implement them. Real-life examples illustrate concepts and problems, including the first comparative biogeographical analysis of the Indo-West Pacific, an introduction to biogeographical concepts rooted in the earth sciences, and the integration of phylogeny, evolution and earth history.

Foundations of Biogeography provides facsimile reprints of seventy-two works that have proven fundamental to the development of the field. From classics by Georges-Louis LeClerc Compte de Buffon, Alexander von Humboldt, and Charles Darwin to equally seminal contributions by Ernst Mayr, Robert MacArthur, and E. O. Wilson, these papers and book excerpts not only reveal biogeography's historical roots but also trace its theoretical and empirical development. Selected and introduced by leading biogeographers, the articles cover a wide variety of taxonomic groups, habitat types, and geographic regions. Foundations of Biogeography will be an ideal introduction to the field for beginning students and an essential reference for established scholars of biogeography, ecology, and evolution. List of Contributors John C. Briggs, James H. Brown, Vicki A. Funk, Paul S. Giller, Nicholas J. Gotelli, Lawrence R. Heaney, Robert Hengeveld, Christopher J. Humphries, Mark V. Lomolino, Alan A. Myers, Brett R. Riddle, Dov F. Sax, Geerat J. Vermeij, Robert J. Whittaker

Comparative biology: space, time, and form; Systematic history: kinds of branching diagrams; Systematic patterns: component analysis; Systematic results: classification; Ontogeny, phylogeny, paleontology and the biogenetic law; Biogeographic history: kinds of questions; Biogeographic pattens: component analysis; Biogeographic results: regions.

Though biogeography may be simply defined--the study of the geographic distributions of organisms--the subject itself is extraordinarily complex, involving a range of scientific disciplines and a bewildering diversity of approaches. For convenience, biogeographers have recognized two research traditions: ecological biogeography and historical biogeography. This book makes sense of the profound revolution that historical biogeography has undergone in the last two decades, and of the resulting confusion over its foundations, basic concepts, methods, and relationships to other disciplines of comparative biology. Using case studies, the authors explain and illustrate the fundamentals and the most frequently used methods of this discipline. They show the reader how to tell when a historical biogeographic approach is called for, how to decide what kind of data to collect, how to choose the best method for the problem at hand, how to perform the necessary calculations, how to choose and apply a computer program, and how to interpret results.

Molecular studies reveal highly ordered geographic patterns in plant and animal distributions. The tropics illustrate these patterns of community immobilism leading to allopatric differentiation, as well as other patterns of mobilism, range expansion, and overlap of taxa. Integrating Earth history and biogeography, Molecular Panbiogeography of the Tropics is an alternative view of distributional history in which groups are older than suggested by fossils and fossil-calibrated molecular clocks. The author discusses possible causes for the endemism of high-level taxa in tropical America and Madagascar, and overlapping clades in South America, Africa, and Asia. The book concludes with a critique of adaptation by selection, founded on biogeography and recent work in genetics.

The Evolution of Phylogenetic Systematics aims to make sense of the rise of phylogenetic systematics—its methods, its objects of study, and its theoretical foundations—with contributions from historians, philosophers, and biologists. This volume articulates an intellectual agenda for the study of systematics and taxonomy in a way that connects classification with larger historical themes in the biological sciences, including morphology, experimental and observational approaches, evolution, biogeography, debates over form and function, character transformation, development, and biodiversity. It aims to provide frameworks for answering the question: how did systematics become phylogenetic?

Biogeography, first published in 1983, is one of the most comprehensive text and general reference books in the natural sciences. The Fifth Edition builds on the strengths of previous editions to provide an insightful and integrative explanation of how geographic variation across terrestrial and marine environments has influenced the fundamental processes of immigration, extinction, and evolution to shape species distributions and nearly all patterns of biological diversity. It is an empirically and conceptually rich text that illustrates general patterns and processes using examples from a broad diversity of life forms, time periods and aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Its fundamental assertion is that patterns in biological diversity make little sense unless viewed within an explicit geographic context. Starting from principal patterns and fundamental principles, and assuming only a rudimentary knowledge of biology, geography, and Earth history, the text explains the relationships between geographic variation in biological diversity and the geological, ecological, and evolutionary processes that have produced them. The use of color illustrations, evaluated and optimized for colorblind readers, has transformed our abilities to illustrate key concepts and empirical patterns in the geography of nature. By providing a description of the historical development of biogeography, evolution and ecology, along with a comprehensive account of the principal patterns, fundamental principles and recent advances in each of these fields of science, our ultimate vision is for Biogeography to serve as the centerpiece of a one- or two-semester core course in biological diversity.

The long-awaited revision of the industry standard on phylogenetics Since the publication of the first edition of this landmark volume more than twenty-five years ago, phylogenetic systematics has taken its place as the dominant paradigm of systematic biology. It has profoundly influenced the way scientists study evolution, and has seen many theoretical and technical advances as the field has continued to grow. It goes almost without saying that the next twenty-five years of phylogenetic research will prove as fascinating as the first, with many exciting developments yet to come. This new edition of Phylogenetics captures the very essence of this rapidly evolving discipline. Written for the practicing systematist and phylogeneticist, it addresses both the philosophical and technical issues of the field, as well as surveys general practices in taxonomy. Major sections of the book deal with the nature of species and higher taxa, homology and characters, trees and tree graphs, and biogeography—the purpose being to develop biologically relevant species, character, tree, and biogeographic concepts that can be applied fruitfully to phylogenetics. The book then turns its focus to phylogenetic trees, including an in-depth guide to tree-building algorithms. Additional coverage includes: Parsimony and parsimony analysis Parametric phylogenetics including maximum likelihood and Bayesian approaches Phylogenetic classification Critiques of evolutionary taxonomy, phenetics, and transformed cladistics Specimen selection, field collecting, and curating Systematic publication and the rules of nomenclature Providing a thorough synthesis of the field, this important update to Phylogenetics is essential for students and researchers in the areas of evolutionary biology, molecular evolution, genetics and evolutionary genetics, paleontology, physical anthropology, and zoology.

"This spectacular book does full justice to the Compositae (Asteraceae), the largest and most successful flowering plant family with some 1700 genera and 24,000 species. It is an indispensable reference, providing the most up-to-date hypotheses of phylogenetic relationships in the family based on molecular and morphological characters, along with the corresponding subfamilial and tribal classification. The 2009 work not only integrates the extensive molecular phylogenetic analyses conducted in the last 25 years, but also uses these to produce a metatree for about 900 taxa of Compositae. The book contains 44 chapters, contributed by 80 authors, covering the history, economic importance, character variation, and systematic and phylogenetic diversity of the family. The emphasis of this work is phylogenetic; its chapters provide a detailed, current, and thoroughly documented presentation of the major (and not so major) clades in the family, citing some 2632 references. Like the Compositae, the book is massive, diverse, and fascinating. It is beautifully illustrated, with 170 figures, and an additional 108 cladograms (all consistently color-coded, based on the geographic range of the included taxa); within these figures are displayed 443 color photographs, clearly demonstrating the amazing array of floral and vegetative form expressed by members of the clade." --NHBS Environment Bookstore.