An horizon scan of biogeography.
The opportunity to reflect broadly on the accomplishments, prospects, and reach of a field may present itself relatively infrequently. Each biennial meeting of the International Biogeography Society showcases ideas solicited and developed largely during the preceding year, by individuals or teams from across the breadth of the discipline. Here, we highlight challenges, developments, and opportunities in biogeography from that biennial synthesis. We note the realized and potential impact of rapid data accumulation in several fields, a renaissance for inter-disciplinary research, the importance of recognizing the evolution-ecology continuum across spatial and temporal scales and at different taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional levels, and re-exploration of classical assumptions and hypotheses using new tools. However, advances are taxonomically and geographically biased, and key theoretical frameworks await tools to handle, or strategies to simplify, the biological complexity seen in empirical systems. Current threats to biodiversity require unprecedented integration of knowledge and development of predictive capacity that may enable biogeography to unite its descriptive and hypothetico-deductive branches and establish a greater role within and outside academia.
School of Natural Sciences, 5200 North Lake Road, University of California, Merced, CA 95343, USA.
Michael N
MN
Dawson
School of Geography, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD UK.
Adam C
AC
Algar
Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Göteborg, Sweden.
Alexandre
A
Antonelli
Ecology and Evolution, and Consortium for Inter Disciplinary Environmental Research, Stony Brook University, NY, USA.
Liliana M
LM
Dávalos
Department of Geological Sciences, Museum of Natural and Cultural History, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA.
Edward
E
Davis
Cátedra Rui Nabeiro - Biodiversidade, Universidade de Évora, 7000-890 Évora, Portugal and Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC), Calle José Gutiérrez Abascal, 2 28006, Madrid, Spain.
Regan
R
Early
Department of Ecology and Evolution, and Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Antoine
A
Guisan
Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden.
Roland
R
Jansson
Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, Department of Biology, McGill University, Canada.
Jean-Philippe
JP
Lessard
Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Katharine A
KA
Marske
School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
Jenny L
JL
McGuire
Department of Geological Sciences and OHIO Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Studies, Ohio University, USA.
Alycia L
AL
Stigall
Department of Plant Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.
Nathan G
NG
Swenson
Landscape Dynamics Unit, Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, CH-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland.
Niklaus E
NE
Zimmermann
Department of Geography, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA.
Daniel G
DG
Gavin
community assembly; ecological genetics; functional diversity; multi-temporal explanations; phylogenetics; phylogeography; species distribution modeling; synthesis