What is biogeography?
Q: What is biogeography?
A: Biogeography is the study of how species are distributed, including where organisms live and why they are found in certain geographical areas.
Q: How did natural historians document species distribution before Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace?
A: Natural historians made lists of species in various regions of the world and published them as tables in their books.
Q: What did Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace write about?
A: Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace wrote about the life in tropical countries, proposing that evolution was the key to understanding geographical distribution.
Q: How do new species form?
A: New species usually form by speciation, which is when an earlier species splits into two.
Q: What can prevent a species from travelling to a new place?
A: Mountains, seas, and climate can all prevent a species from travelling to a new place.
Q: How does this affect similar places with different animals or plants?
A: This means that two places with similar climates often have different kinds of animals and plants. For example marsupials, which live in Australia, are very different from the fauna in South America.
Q: Why may islands have very different species than mainland continents? A: The species on islands (Hawaii, Galapagos) may be very different to those on mainland continents due to their isolation from other land masses preventing migration of certain animal or plant populations.
