Biogeography is the scientific study of the spatial and temporal patterns of biodiversity, examining how and why the distributions of species, populations, communities, and ecosystems vary across geographical areas and through evolutionary time. It integrates principles from ecology, evolution, geology, and climatology to analyze processes such as dispersal, speciation, extinction, vicariance, and range shifts. Biogeography encompasses subfields including historical biogeography, which reconstructs past distributions using phylogenetic and paleontological data, and ecological biogeography, which investigates how current environmental gradients, habitat structure, and biotic interactions shape present-day distributional patterns and biodiversity gradients, such as latitudinal diversity clines and island faunas.
A recent study reveals geographic biases in how aquatic animals have been tracked and researched across the globe, with a preference toward politically stable, English-speaking countries with high conservation funding. Researchers ...
Ecology
7 hours ago
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A comprehensive study of more than 1,100 springs in the American West warns that critical biodiversity hot spots are facing a mounting extinction crisis.
Ecology
Jul 8, 2026
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A new study published in the journal Alpine Entomology has found that alpine butterflies in the Swiss National Park are closely matching the pace of local warming in their range shift to higher elevations.
Plants & Animals
Jul 6, 2026
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The beaver and moose may be enduring symbols of Canadian wildlife, but neither is uniquely Canadian from a genetic perspective. But a team of researchers from the University of Ottawa has now discovered something rare: a ...
Ecology
Jul 2, 2026
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Plants that become invasive may owe their success to an advantage shaped long before they arrive, according to new research led by King's College London.
Plants & Animals
Jun 28, 2026
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Migratory birds such as the pied flycatcher typically have wintering locations in Africa close to others from the same breeding population. That means that birds breeding in the Netherlands run into each other again in Africa, ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 25, 2026
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Australia is home to unusual mammals not found anywhere else—consider the platypus, Tasmanian devil or red kangaroo. But did you know our understanding of this continent's incredible mammalian diversity is still incomplete?
Plants & Animals
Jun 25, 2026
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An echidna in Tasmania looks very different from one in Western Australia. But the differences run much deeper than appearance. A new review published in Australian Zoologist by University of Tasmania zoologist Stewart Nicol, ...
Evolution
Jun 23, 2026
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Imagine returning to a favorite hiking trail 15 years after your first visit and discovering that many of the plants and animals that once lived there are gone. While these species may still exist elsewhere, these disappearances—known ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 18, 2026
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An international research team, which included University of Tartu visiting doctoral student Wen-Gang Zhang and Professor of Botany Meelis Pärtel, has found a new solution to one of ecology's long-standing controversies—Darwin's ...
Evolution
Jun 16, 2026
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