Island biogeography - Robert Whittaker

Islands, being discrete, internally quantifiable, numerous, and varied entities, provide us with natural laboratories for developing theories and models of how evolution works. Work on evolution on islands has a long-established biogeographical pedigree, stretching back to the work of Darwin and Wallace, and generating ideas, theories, and models that have played a central role in the development of mainstream ecology, evolutionary biology, and biogeography. Island Biogeographyis a new textbook, aimed at advanced undergraduates and graduate students. The first comprehensive book to be written on the topic since 1981, it provides a much needed synthesis of recent developments across the discipline, linking current theoretical debates with applied island ecology. The bookcovers the following diverse themes: the nature and formation of island environments, and their special contribution to global biodiversity; micro- and macro- evolutionary change on islands, and the frameworks by which these changes may be understood; island ecological theories concerning species numbers, species assembly, and composition; a critical assessment of the contribution of island theories to conservation biology; and finally, an assessment of the human impact on island biodiversity,setting out the tremendous scale of anthropogenic extinctions, and assessing the current threats and remedies. Written by an author who has been researching and teaching island biogeography for many years, Island Biogeography is wide-ranging, authoritative, and accessible to students from acrossgeography and the life sciences. The first truly modern textbook on a fascinating and important subject in evolution and ecology.