Biogeography considers the distribution of biological units over a wide range of scales. The units range from genotypes, populations and species to families and higher taxa. Processes can be local, such as the isolation on islands due to sea-level fluctuations, or large-scale tectonic processes that separates continents and creates oceans. In all processes time is an important factor and by combining data on recent patterns with paleontological data the understanding of the distribution of extant taxa can be improved. This volume focuses on speciation due to isolation in island-like settings, and the evolution of large-scale diversity as the result of origination, maintenance and extinction.

Offers exchanges between the fields of paleontology and zoology as patterns of biodiversity have long attracted attention by both biologists and paleontologists Features chapters on the development of (isolated) island faunas, paleogeography and zoomorphology Shows that patterns are not always what they seem if you look at them without a spatial or temporal reference. This cannot be generated without documenting fossil or recent occurrences of taxa

Autorentext

Willem Renema:
2002 Ph.D. Free University of Amsterdam
2002- present: Researcher at the National Natural History Museum of the Netherlands.

Dr. Renema is an expert on the (paleo)ecology of large benthic foraminifera in Southeast Asia and the processes leading to the origination and maintenance of high diversity in the Indo-West Pacific.

Inhalt
Global Disjunctions and Flying Insects.- Zoogeography of Freshwater Invertebrates of Southeast Asia, with Special Reference to Odonata.- Distribution and Speciation of Megapodes (Megapodiidae) and Subsequent Development of their Breeding.- The Influence of Land Barriers on the Evolution of Pontoniine Shrimps (Crustacea, Decapoda) Living in Association with Molluscs and Solitary Ascidians.- Delineation of the Indo-Malayan Centre of Maximum Marine Biodiversity: The Coral Triangle.- Fauna Development of Larger Benthic Foraminifera in the Cenozoic of Southeast Asia.- The Role of Spain in the Development of the Reef Brachiopod Faunas During the Carboniferous.- Contrasting Patterns and Mechanisms of Extinction during the EoceneOligocene Transition in Jamaica.- Long-Lived Lake Molluscs as Island Faunas: A Bivalve Perspective.- Patterns in Insular Evolution of Mammals: A Key to Island Palaeogeography.- Islands from a Snail's Perspective.- Morphological and Genetical Differentiation of Lizards (Podarcis bocagei and P. hispanica) in the Ria de Arosa Archipelago (Galicia, Spain) resulting from Vicariance and Occasional Dispersal.