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.
As the climate warms, scientists expect animals and plants to move to cooler areas—uphill, toward the poles, or into deeper waters. But in a surprising twist, scientists have found that over a third of species are doing the ...
Ecology
Jul 8, 2025
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67
Biogeographical regions of marine organisms, i.e., their distribution across different habitats, often overlap well with the major global ocean currents. The geological age of the currents plays a major role in this. The ...
Ecology
Jul 2, 2025
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41
As jewelflowers spread into California from the desert Southwest over the past couple of million years, they settled in places that felt like home, according to a new study from the University of California, Davis. The work, ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 1, 2025
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34
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that smaller islands within the Wallacea biodiversity hotspot are crucial refuges for endangered vertebrates, providing higher-quality habitats ...
Evolution
Jun 25, 2025
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230
A team of researchers led by Prof. Wang Wei from the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IBCAS) has revealed how unique native plant life on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) has evolved over time, shedding ...
Evolution
Jun 24, 2025
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23
As the climate warms, many species are shifting northward into areas that were previously too cold for them. A study, "Winters restrict a climate change-driven butterfly range expansion despite rapid evolution of seasonal ...
Evolution
Jun 23, 2025
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43
Despite decades of ocean exploration, humans still lack basic answers to one of the most fundamental ecological questions: where is marine life found, and why?
Ecology
Jun 23, 2025
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29
In 1831, Charles Darwin embarked on a five-year voyage to South America aboard the HMS Beagle, which was conducting hydrographic surveys. During the expedition, Darwin explored remote regions of the continent, collecting ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jun 16, 2025
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68
From diverse shapes and sizes to complex dispersals and defenses, seed traits hold the secrets to how plants adapt, reproduce, and survive. Yet, when it comes to global plant trait data, there is a noticeable gap: We know ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 12, 2025
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