Biogeogrpahy: Fundamentals Of Modern Biogeography

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Carolus Linnaeus

Back 1

Binomial classification
○ Tried to explain patterns of diversity by suggesting that all species were layered up Mt. Ararat

Like his contemporaries, believed that all species were immutable

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Comte Buffon

Back 2

○ Climate change
○ Realized that species and climates were mutable and that distinct areas have distinct plants and animals
○ Buffon's Law is the first biogeographic principle

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• James Hutton

Back 3

○ Deep time and relative dating
○ Father of modern geology
○ Horrible writer
○ Eluded to the theory of evolution long before Darwin

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• Humboldt

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○ Phytogeography: Distribution of plants
○ Life zones that he studied were mostly in the Andes

Held the highest unassisted ascent record until Hillory

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• Alphonso de Candole

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○ Center of origin competition
○ Primarily a taxonomist
○ Drafted the international rules of nomenclature
○ Was interested in where particular species originated
○ Interested in plant physiology

Interested in plant competition

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Adolphe Brongniart

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○ Paleobotony
○ Worked primarily in the Alps
○ Looking through the strratographic layers in the mountains he found leaf forms that did not match those of the modern era
○ Deduced that these leaf formations had to represent conditions that were very different from those associated with today
○ Looked at leaf size and formation
○ By observing the leaf size and margins one can derive many geographic assumptions such as water availability, wind speed, temperature fluctuation average, etc

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Charles Lyell

Back 7

○ Relative dating, uniformitarianism, extinction
○ Was an excellent writer
○ Huge influence over Darwin
○ However was over influenced by the Bible and could not accept the theory of evolution
○ Uniformatarianism is the theory that the processes that occurred today also occurred yesterday

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Justus liebig

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○ Limiting factors
○ Examples of limiting factors are moisture, temperature, continentality, and latiudinality
○ Founder of agricultural chemistry and developed the Theory of Mineral Nutrients (there needs to be a certain amount of nutrients for a certain type of plant to grow)
○ "The yeild of of a crop is proportional to the amount of the most limiting nutrient"

There can also be compensating factors that allow organisms to grow where they would otherwise be inhibited (e.g. ponderosa pines in lake rock)

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the goals of taxonomy described by Linnaus were to:

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○ Describe
○ Name (nomencalture
○ Classify
○ Identify

Determine relationships

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Binomial Classification and taxonomy

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• Classification system uses primarily Latin terms
○ Specific epithet
§ Eg. Pinus contorta (Lodgepole Pine)
§ Often includes references to other historical information
• Perspectives
○ Lumpers (Zoology)
○ Spliters (botonists)

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Super position

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○ Stuff on top is newer
○ Initial Horizontality
§ Stuff was deposited in a horizontal fashion
○ Lateral continuity
○ Floral and faunal succession
○ Cross-cutting relationships
○ Inclusions

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Unconformities

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○ Disconformities: erosional unconformity
An unconformity is a buried erosion surface separating two rock masses or strata of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous. In general, the older layer was exposed to erosion for an interval of time before deposition of the younger, but the term is used to describe any break in the sedimentary geologic record. The phenomenon of angular unconformities was discovered by James Hutton, who found examples at Jedburgh in 1787 and at Siccar Point in 1788.

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• Alfred Wallace

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Is credited with Island biogeography

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§ Allopatric speciation

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□ also known as geographic speciation, is the phenomenon where huge biological populations are physically isolated by an extrinsic barrier and evolve intrinsic (genetic) reproductive isolation, such that if the barrier breaks down, individuals of the populations can no longer interbreed. Evolutionary biologists agree that allopatry is a common way that new species arise. By contrast, the frequency of other types of speciation, such as sympatric speciation, parapatric speciation, and heteropatric speciation), is debated.

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Assumptions of Island Biogeography

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Allopatric Speciation
§ Isolation
§ Area
§ Founders effect (when the population has the characteristics of the founding adults, genetic isolation)
§ Waif Biota (islands that are incredible unstable)

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• Bergman's Rule

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○ Within a species, body size increases with increasing latitude
○ This is a deductive rule and there are many exceptions

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Allen's Rule

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○ Observes extremity size in relation to latitude

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Latidunial Variation Rules

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1) Allen's Rule
2)Bergman's Rule

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Merriam's Life Zones

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1889 C. Hart Merriam
a belt of vegetation and animal life that is similarly expressed with increases in altitude and increases in latitude.

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• Sir Joseph Hooker

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Hooker's collections from the voyage became eventually one of two volumes published as the Flora Antarctica (1844–47).

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• Asa Grey

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instrumental in unifying the taxonomic knowledge of the plants of North America

This book, known simply as Gray's Manual, has gone through a number of editions with botanical illustrations by Isaac Sprague, and remains a standard in the field

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Succession

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A directional cumulative change in community composition and structure over time
○ Generally predictable
○ There is demographic change. change in #of individuals of species involved
○ Changing interactions among organisms
○ Changes in size and age structures
○ Time frame is usually in scale of decades to centuries
○ Henry David Thoreau was first to use term

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Henry Cowles

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§ Space for Place Substitution
§ Vegetation of different ages created patterns that were quite distinctive
§ Cowles's concern with temporality helped establish ecology as the investigation of a changing, natural environment, defining patterns of transformation over time as plant communities succeed one another

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Frederick Clements (1916)

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§ Communities at a large scale are related to climate conditions
§ Communities are super-organisms
§ Relay floristics
□ Establishment of pioneer species that improve an environment clearing the way for other organisms
□ Also known as facilitation
1. Nudation: the exposure of a new surface
2. Migration: seeds, spores, etc from adjacent area, though often already exist in localized area
3. Ecesis: germination, early growth, and establishment of plants
4. Reaction: autogenic (derived from self)
5. effects of plants on the habitat
6. Stabilization: the climax

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Harold Gleason (1923)

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□ Was strong critic of Clements
□ Argued that communities were not result of development, rather there was a random group of organisms that constituted aggregations

Was botanist and therefore was a small-scale guy

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Seral stages

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○ Pioneer, intermediate, climax

The series of relatively transitory plant communities that develop during ecological succession from bare ground to the climax stage.

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Primary succession

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Where there is no soil (start from scratch)

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• Secondary succession

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○ There is still seeds in the soils
○ Old field succession

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Accelerated succession

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○ Once competition of existing dominant organism is eliminated, existing lesser organism is able to take over at an accelerated rate

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• Autogenic vs. allogenic

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○ Processes that are happening from within as opposed to those that are happening from without
○ Biological vs. environmental influences

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Progressive succession

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increased complexity
increased diversity

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retrogressive succession

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decreased complexity
decreased diversity

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Alfred Wegner

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noticed similar shapes in continents
deduced that the continents were once connected andused theory to illustrate similar species between continents

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evidence for pangaea

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similar shapes
fossil records
similar species
multi-continental glaciation

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Proof of Pangaea

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sonar evidence proved sea floor spreading
sediment cores
paleomagnetism

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• Landscape Ecology

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○ Spatial pattern of multiple communities and the processes of the interactions within the communities
○ Deals within a scale of 10 K sq. (sub-regional scale)
§ E.g. drainage basin of a given area
○ Has been central in concept of urban planning in Europe: understanding of field differs within cultures

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Island Biogeography Theory

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○ The theory of island biogeography holds that the number of species found on an island (the equilibrium number) is determined by two factors, the effect of distance from the mainland and the effect of island size. These would affect the rate of extinction on the islands and the level of immigration.

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Equilibrium Theory of Island biogeography

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○ Robt. MacArthur and E.O. Wilson
○ Before this theory the field was not
○ Species richness of islands is a function of the area of the island (resources) and isolation (probability of colonization)
○ On any given island the immigration of species is directly proportional to the extinction of existing species in a given set of circumstances
○ The equilibrium will vary depending on size of island: larger island will have greater chance of species survival
○ Larger islands are more likely to be topographically diverse
○ Same theory holds for isolated areas (national parks)