GEOG 335. Biogeography

The Song of the Dodo GENERAL REVIEW QUESTIONS

You should be able to answer all of the following questions by the time you have completed reading The Song of the Dodo by David Quammen.

1. Islands have served as natural laboratories for the study of evolution (or natural selection) and biogeography. What kinds of evolutionary and biogeographic patterns have been elucidated in the study of islands by Darwin, Wallace, and their successors?
2. What is speciation?
   • How are geographic (spatial) conditions implicated in the origin of species?
   • How is time believed to be a factor in the speciation process? How can this assumption be used to trace the historical biogeography (i.e., past locations and dispersals) of a taxon?
3. What is the observed relationship between area and total number of species?
   • What is the observed relationship between age of habitat and number of species?
   • What is the observed relationship between isolation and the number and uniqueness of species?
4. What is meant by the statement "taxonomy reflects phylogeny"?
   • How does the assumption that taxonomy reflects phylogeny make taxonomy a useful, indeed, essential tool for biogeographers?
5. Certain genetic, morphological, and behavioral characteristics distinguish island forms from continental forms of a given taxon.
   • What are some of these characteristics?
   • What explanations can be put forth for "island characters"?
6. What distinction does Quammen make between archipelago speciation and adaptive radiation?
7. Why are small populations particularly vulnerable to extinction?
8. Why are alien or exotic species commonly viewed as threats to extinction-prone native species? Is this always justified?
9. What is meant by "ecosystem decay?"
10. What is the difference between a sample and an isolate?
    • What is the implication of this difference with respect to the conservation of biological diversity?
11. What does the Theory of Island Biogeography portend for our future world of fragmented habitats? Explain.

| GEOG 335. Biogeography | Radford University |

Created by Susan Woodward, August 18, 1997. Last updated 8/18/97 by SLW.