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.
Ground squirrel droppings, preserved for millennia in the Yukon's deep permafrost, have yielded an enormous amount of environmental DNA from dozens of species of plants, insects, microbes and large mammals, offering detailed ...
Evolution
6 hours ago
0
0
In its native habitat, switchgrass flowered earlier when growing farther north. In experiments with diverse genetic samples, it flowered earlier in the south.
Plants & Animals
Jun 3, 2026
0
7
As wildflowers go, the mountain jewelflower is demure, clever and quietly unbreakable. It has spread across many of California's iconic landscapes, from Sonoma wine country to the oak-dotted foothills, even over the Sierra ...
Plants & Animals
May 30, 2026
0
20
A new study of British wrens has provided new insights into the inner workings of "island syndromes," according to research led by the University of Birmingham. The paper, published in the Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean ...
Evolution
May 28, 2026
0
116
A Brazilian study published in the journal Ecography indicates that the biodiversity of anuran amphibians (toads and frogs) on islands is determined by factors encompassed in two previously opposing theories.
Plants & Animals
May 27, 2026
0
10
Human activity may be enabling the expansion of golden jackals across Europe by reducing the suppressive effect of gray wolves, suggests research published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. This human-mediated interaction could ...
Plants & Animals
May 26, 2026
0
56
The high mountain ranges of Asia remain among the least biologically explored regions of the continent. Now, an international team of researchers has shown that one of their most elusive venomous snakes, long treated as a ...
Plants & Animals
May 25, 2026
0
20
Researchers from the University of Rhode Island are contributing to an international effort to document life on Indonesia's remote tropical seamounts—underwater mountains rising from the ocean floor that can host diverse ...
Ecology
May 22, 2026
0
6
Governments around the world conserve plants and animals in part by setting aside land. Whether as wilderness reserves or as resource management zones that allow industrial activities such as logging, 17.4% of the planet's ...
Ecology
May 19, 2026
0
18
A scientific mission was set to kick off the search Monday for rodents that may be hantavirus carriers after an outbreak on a cruise ship departed this region at the southern tip of Argentina on April 1.
Ecology
May 18, 2026
0
12
