Biogeographic history

[John Grehan]

For those on this list interested in the history of biogeography
the following publication should provide an important
contribution:

Llorente, J., Morrone, J., Bueno, A., Viloria, A., and Espinosa, D. 2000.
Historia del desarrollo y la  recepción de las ideas panbiogeográficas de
Léon Croizat. Rev. Acad. Colomb. Cienc. 24: 549-577

The English abstract is as follows:

The Italo-American botanist Leon Croizat (1894-1982) developed the
methodology of panbiogeography, based on his metaphors "life and Earth
evolve together", "dispersal = translation in space + form-making", and
"dispersal forever repeats". The panbiogeographic method is basically to
plot distributions of organisms on maps and connect the disjunct
distribution areas of collection localities together with lines called
tracks. Individual tracks for unrelated groups of organisms are repetitive,
and the resulting summary lines are generalized tracks that indicate the
preexistence of ancestral biotas, subsequently fragmented by tectonic
and/or climatic changes. Although authors belonging to the dispersalist
establishment dismissed Croizat's contributions, others considered that
Croizat advanced the foundations of a new synthesis in comparative biology.
We attempt herein a geographical analysis of scientific change, where the
reception of Croizat's ideas in the United States, New Zealand, and Latin
America is presented and compared, and divergence concerning his original
ideas is briefly commented.

John Grehan