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Insular biogeography [1] or island biogeography is a field within biogeography that examines the factors that affect the species richness and diversification of isolated natural communities. The theory was originally developed to explain the pattern of the species–area relationship occurring in oceanic islands.
Garganornis ballmanni, a very large fossil goose from the Gargano and Scontrone islands of the Late Miocene. Foster's rule, also known as the island rule or the island effect, is an ecogeographical rule in evolutionary biology stating that members of a species get smaller or bigger depending on the resources available in the environment.
Size comparison of the giant gymnure (moonrat) Deinogalerix from the Late Miocene of Gargano, Italy, with a European hedgehog. Island gigantism, or insular gigantism, is a biological phenomenon in which the size of an animal species isolated on an island increases dramatically in comparison to its mainland relatives.
Insular dwarfism, a form of phyletic dwarfism, [1] is the process and condition of large animals evolving or having a reduced body size [a] when their population's range is limited to a small environment, primarily islands.
The Theory of Island Biogeography is a 1967 book by the ecologist Robert MacArthur and the biologist Edward O. Wilson. [1] It is widely regarded as a seminal work in island biogeography and ecology. The Princeton University Press reprinted the book in 2001 as a part of the "Princeton Landmarks in Biology" series. [1]
Biological rules and laws are often developed as succinct, broadly applicable ways to explain complex phenomena or salient observations about the ecology and biogeographical distributions of plant and animal species around the world, though they have been proposed for or extended to all types of organisms. Many of these regularities of ecology ...
This makes insular species particularly vulnerable to exploitation by alien species. For example, when humans first introduced dogs, pigs, cats, rats, and crab-eating macaques to the island of Mauritius in the 17th century, they plundered dodo nests and increased interspecies competition for the limited food resources. [22]
Further evidence comes from the field of biogeography because evolution with common descent provides the best and most thorough explanation for a variety of facts concerning the geographical distribution of plants and animals across the world. This is especially obvious in the field of insular biogeography.