The History and Reticulating Phylogeny of Biogeography

This chapter presents the history and reticulating phylogeny of biogeography from the 18th century. The developmental history of biogeography presents a story of increasing diversification often accompanied by the isolation and specialization of its descendant disciplines. Populations of humans have over time accumulated knowledge of geographic variation through local resources. Thus, advances in biogeography have been driven by the merging of ecological knowledge garnered from distinct local populations as they have discovered emergent, global-scale patterns in the geography of life. The chapter also provides an overview of the Age of Exploration in Europe and looks at the impact of Charles Darwin, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Philip Lutley Sclater, and Alfred Russel Wallace on revolutionary advances in biogeography and evolutionary biology.