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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.
Frank W. Preston, an early investigator of the theory of the species–area relationship, divided it into two types: samples (a census of a contiguous habitat that grows in the census area, also called "mainland" species–area relationships), and isolates (a census of discontiguous habitats, such as islands, also called "island" species–area ...
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. For example, it is known that pygmy mammoths evolved from normal mammoths on small 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]
For example, 50% of endemic bird areas are found on islands. [2] Endemism is often the result of adaptive radiation. [1] Adaptive radiation is when a single species colonizes an area and rapidly diversifies to fill all of the available niches. A common example is the assemblage of finch species documented by Charles Darwin in the Galapagos ...
Spatial ecology studies the ultimate distributional or spatial unit occupied by a species.In a particular habitat shared by several species, each of the species is usually confined to its own microhabitat or spatial niche because two species in the same general territory cannot usually occupy the same ecological niche for any significant length of time.
Nestedness is a measure of structure in an ecological system, usually applied to species-sites systems (describing the distribution of species across locations), or species-species interaction networks (describing the interactions between species, usually as bipartite networks such as hosts-parasites, plants-pollinators, etc.).
This, combined with assumptions of island biogeography theory, lead Jared Diamond to state that a single large reserve is the best method of conservation, [8] and it is still commonly recommended. For example, a review by Ovaskainen [ 11 ] determined that a single large reserve site is best at maximising long-term survival of the species and ...