Darwin’s biogeography

Participative Biogeography-Based Optimization

Biogeography-Based Optimization (BBO) has recently gained interest of researchers due to its simplicity in implementation, efficiency and existence of very few parameters. The BBO algorithm is a new type of optimization technique based on biogeography concept. This population-based algorithm uses the idea of the migration strategy of animals or other species for solving optimization problems. t...

Bipolar biogeography.

I n PNAS, Popp et al. (1) present a convincing molecular phylogenetic analysis of a small group of ericaceous flowering plants, Empetrum (the crowberries), which includes species distributed at high northern latitudes and high southern latitudes but nowhere in between—a so-called bipolar (or antitropical or, broadly speaking, amphitropical) disjunction (Fig. 1). They contend that the best expla...

Historical Biogeography

Historical biogeography can be divided into two subdisciplines: taxon biogeography and area biogeography. In the former we are interested in reconstructing the geographic distribution history of a particular group of organisms. Questions we may be interested in answering include: Where did the organisms originate? How did they colonize the areas in which they live today? When did they first com...

Phylogenetic Systematics and Biogeography: Using Cladograms in Historical Biogeography Methods

Microbial Endemism and Biogeography

The topic of microbial biogeography is almost 100 years old, however, when confronted with questions about the existence and extent of endemism in the microbial world, many microbiologists respond with opinions and theoretical arguments rather than examples of well-conducted studies. We begin this chapter with an overview of this debate as it ·applies to free-living prokaryotes in part because ...