Island biogeography

Island biogeography is a field of biogeography, which is based heavily on components of ecology and evolutionary biology.

It describes and analyzes the types of equilibrium that sets in between wander and extinction on islands or insular spread other ecosystems.

The island biogeography is ultimately based on studies from the mid-19th century, notably by Alfred Russel Wallace. In their modern and partly mathematical form it was developed in the third quarter of the 20th century by Robert H. MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson and expanded in the meantime.

The key message is, in a simplified form that islands that are close to the area of ​​origin of the colonizing species to relatively higher species numbers tend than those that are farther away from the area of ​​origin. Further, larger islands harbor at equilibrium a larger number of species than smaller islands. These findings have considerable significance for the practical species and habitat protection.

In the model of island biogeography connectivity as a function of individual patch size and arrangement has a crucial role of gene flow is ensured through these corridors and the probability of extinction of a species drops considerably. Real corridors hang in their expression and function closely related to the considered organism.