BIOGEOGRAPHY: DOES

THEORY MEET
PRACTICE?

Are we experiencing biodiversity crisis?

Mass Extinctions

Ordovician
Devonian
Permian
Triassic
Cretaceous
Quaternary

The 7th Mass Extinction

Holocene (present)
Anthropogenic cause
Depletion of natural resources

The human population is

approaching the limit at which
an acceptable quality of life
for its entirety can be
attained
Wilson 1999

Outline

An Insular Science
Patterns and Priority
Theory Into Practice: Problems and Prospects

An Insular Science

Islands
Parcels

of land surrounded by ocean

Facilitates several unusual evolutionary trends
Increased insularity and isolation is a major factor
in accelerating species decline
Primary productivity by humans results in an
increasingly fragmented and compartmentalized
earth in which insularization of communities
becomes the norm leading to higher risk of
extinction
Persian carpet analogy (Quammen 1999)

Patterns and Priority

Conservation
Hotspots:

islands of exceptional species richness

and endemism
25

documented global hotspots

44% of all species of vascular plants
35% of all species of four vertebrate groups
Confined to 1.4% of the terrestrial land surface of the earth

Key Strategies (Fonseca 2000)

Improved

quantity and quality of data

Enhanced collaboration with scientists
Closer co-operation with decision makers

Patterns and Priority

Reserve Selection
Bibby

(1998)

Including

a species at least once

95% chance of including a community at least once
Representing each land system at least once
Wessels
Land

et al. (1999)

facets (simple units of a landscape with uniform

slope, soils, and hydrology)
Heterogeneity and biological richness are not always
correlated.

Patterns and Priority

Reserve Selection
Shafer

(1999)

Complex

criterion of scenery may have been a

significant part of the decision-making process

Species-based approaches are themselves sometimes

flawed because they may fail to account the
multidimensional nature of biodiversity.

Patterns and Priority

Reserve Selection

Maddock and du Plessis (1999)

Use ecological or biogeographical zones
Turpie et. al. (2000)

Rarity algorithm focused on the rare and endemic

Greedy algorithm focused on the total number of species

Ideal Reserve Network

Optimum distribution of frequency of areas needed to
maintain one at least one population of each species
Selection of each new site is dependent on the previously
selected site
Irreplaceability occurrence of narrow endemics or a
particular combination of species is regarded irreplaceable

Theory Into Practice: Problems and

Prospects

Equilibrium Theory of Island Biogeography

(MacArthur and Wilson 1967)

Species richness on an island

represents
a
dynamic
equilibrium controlled by the
rate of immigration of new
species and the extinction of
previously
established
species.
Most of island biotas are
not in equilibrium due to
human impacts.

www.colorado.edu

Theory Into Practice: Problems and

Prospects

Mark V. Lomolino, Ph.D.

Island
community
structure is dynamic over
time but not necessarily
represented by a balance
between immigration and
extinction.

The
hierarchical
model
incorporates
feedback
processes such as interspecific
interaction
and
offers
explanations for such insular
phenomena as the distribution of
individual species, species-areaisolation relationships, and even
patterns of assembly.