Tag Archives: Biogeographic Regions

Biogeography at a Global Scale: The Benefits of Distributed Experimental Networks

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Post provided by Elizabeth Borer

©NASA

©NASA

I have always loved the Blue Marble image of Earth from the Apollo 17 mission, yet a large part of my science is focused on experimental responses at the scale of meter squared grassland plots or even individual grass plants. While I spent my early career wanting to be able to say something important about regional or global processes, I found myself feeling like generating any experimental insights into processes and ecosystem responses at larger scales would be an impossible fiction.

As a postdoc, I had the opportunity to do a multi-site study across a north-south precipitation gradient in California and jumped at it. Among other questions, I decided to ask about whether plants and insects varied similarly across sites in response to replicated experimental treatments. Yet, the idea of actually sampling – and then processing samples from – more than about four sites for more than a year or two was utterly daunting. Continue reading →

Biogeographic Regions: What Are They and What Can They Tell Us?

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Post provided by Leonardo Dapporto, Gianni Ciolli, Roger L.H. Dennis, Richard Fox and Tim G. Shreeve

Every species in the world has a unique geographic distribution. But many species have similar ranges. There are many things that can cause two (or more) species to have similar ranges – for example shared evolutionary histories, physical obstacles (mountains, oceans etc.) or ecological barriers limiting their dispersal. As a consequence, different regions of the globe are inhabited by different sets of living organisms.

In the mid-19th century ecologists recognised that the earth could be divided into different biogeographic regions. Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) played a key role in defining and recognising biogeographic regions. He improved the existing maps of  biogeographic regions and provided basic rules to identify them. His observation that some of these regions are home to similar species, despite being far away from each other and separated by significant barriers was the inspiration for Alfred Wegener’s theory of continental drift. In more recent years regionalisation has been used to understand the spatial drivers of biological evolution and to protect those regions characterised by particularly unique flora and fauna.

The biogeographic regions identified by Alfred Russel Wallace from The Geographical Distribution of Animals (1876)

The biogeographic regions identified by Alfred Russel Wallace from The Geographical Distribution of Animals (1876)

Despite the long history of biological regionalisation, the methods to identify biogeographic regions are still being improved. We are currently working in this exciting field of research and recently published ‘A new procedure for extrapolating turnover regionalization at mid-small spatial scales, tested on British butterflies’ in Methods in Ecology and Evolution. Continue reading →