99th ESA Annual Meeting (August 10 -- 15, 2014)

SYMP 18

Island Biogeography, from the Oceans to the Sky: Recent Advances and an Emerging Synthesis

Islands have long been recognized as important model systems, as natural experiments with discrete boundaries, replication, and simplified environmental contexts. In 1963, Robert MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson published An Equilibrium Theory of Insular Zoogeography, which integrated theoretical principles from ecology, evolution, and geography to explain species-isolation and species-area relationships in islands. MacArthur and Wilson’s theory of island biogeography represented a fundamental shift in ecology from static to dynamic system thinking, and is arguably the most influential mechanistic theory to explain the processes driving species richness. Since its inception, island biogeography theory has been applied beyond oceanic systems, including lakes, natural patches within anthropogenic landscapes, mountaintop “sky islands” and even to the human microbiome. Island biogeography also played a critical role in the development of Hubbell’s neutral theory, as well as in conservation biology, particularly with regard to reserve design and habitat corridors. More recently, advances in this field have expanded the explanatory power of island biogeography beyond biological diversity patterns, aiming to explain trends in functional diversity and pattern of biotic interactions networks. Furthermore, its application have gone beyond the ecological realm, and island biogeography theory has recently been applied to explain patterns of cultural and language richness.