Historical Figures

Historical Figures:

Carolus Linnaeus

  • Believed life radiated from a “Paradisical Mountain” in the tropics (likely an island)

    • Second radiation (Noah’s landing) from Mt. Ararat 

  • Modes of dispersal possessed by organisms allowed this

  • Described ~13,000 species  

    • ~ 4,200 animals

    • ~ 9,000 plants 


George-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788)

  • Earth is much older than 6,000 years

  • Taxa changed throughout time 

    • The earth has also changed through time

    • There is a connection between geological and biological histories of earth  

  • Hypothesized that the centre of origin for Earth’s biota was in the far north (not a tropical island)

    • Occurred when climatic conditions were more benign 

  • Biotas changed and diversified as they colonize southward

  • Early foundations of natural selection 

  • Buffon’s law (First law of biogeography): 

    • Environmentally similar but isolated regions have distinct species assemblages

      • But species have similar attributes

      • Buffon only considered birds and mammals


Johann Reinhold Forster (1729 - 1798)

  • Developed a systematic global view of botanical regions, each with its own distinct assemblages

  • Support for Buffon’s Law (added plants)

  • Recognized relationships between plants and environment (abiotic and biotic; animals)

  • Noted the tendency for plant diversity to decreased from the equator to the poles

  • Early insights into what would become theories of island biogeography and species diversity


Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859)

  • Founder of phytogeography

  • Founded volcanology, anthropology, meteorology, geomagnetism, oceanography, archaeology

  • Suggests that South American and West African coastlines matched, and suggested they may have once been joined  

  • Coined term “vegetation belts”, promoted idea that climate change determines plant distributions 

    • Altitudinal vegetation belts:

      • Desert scrub

      • Woodland

      • Subalpine

      • Alpine 

  • Noted that latitudinal variation is similar to elevational variation 


Augustin de Candolle: (1778 - 1841)

  • Competition for resources influences distribution

  • Built on work of forester

    • Island area, isolation, age, volcanism, and climate influence floristic activity


Charles Lyell (1797 - 1875)

  • Principles of geology

    • Stratigraphic layers and fossils suggest Earth and its biota changes through time

    • Changes are gradual and ongoing

  • Uniformitarianism: natural processes observed currently have always acted on Earth, and are key to understanding the past

  • Extensionist


Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)

  • Influenced by Lyell

  • Dispersalist

  • Made connection between Earth’s geological history and changes in biota as the result of geographic isolation and natural selection 

  • On the Origin of Species (1859)

    • Proposed natural selection as a key factor in speciation and differences in species diversity and composition across geographical space 


Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817 - 1911)

  • Believed similarities between African and S. American floras were the result of a once exposed land bridge 

    • Continental drift theory (plate tectonics) would later help explain Hooker’s observations  

  • Proponent of what would become island biography


Alfred Russel Wallace: (1823 - 1913)

  • Darwin defined “Origin” for 15 years as he amassed evidence

  • Wallace sent Darwin a manuscript with identical theory based on similar observations 

  • This forced Darwin’s hand, and he published before Wallace 


E.W. Hilgard: (1833 - 1916)

  • Founder of soil science

  • Climate and plants are responsible for converting parent material into soil


Vasily V. Dokuchaev (1846 - 1903)

  • Soils have characteristic structure


Louis Agassiz (1807 - 1873)

  • Founder of glaciology

  • Theory of the “Ice Age”

  • Did not accept Darwin’s theories


Clinton Hart Merriam (1855 - 1942)

  • Coined the term  “biogeography”

  • Confirmed that elevational variation in plant species composition were generally similar to latitudinal variation

    • Life zones


Ernst Mayr (1904 - 2005)

  • Biological Species concept: a species is definable as a group of populations that are reproductively isolated


Alfred Lothar Wegener (1880 - 1930)

  • Theory of continental drift , 1912

  • Continents once joined, now drifting 

  • Landmasses fit together like a jigsaw 

  • Geological and fossil similarities between matching sides of continents

  • Widely accepted by the 1960s


G. Evelyn Hutchinson (1903 - 1991)

  • Studied diversity and species coexistence 

  • Multidimensional niche concept 


Robert H. MacArthur & Edward O. Wilson:

  • Theory of island biogeography: island size and species diversity are correlated 


James H. Brown

  • Founder of macroecology: study of large scale questions about distribution of body size, abundance, and geographic range of organisms

  • Cofounder of metabolic scaling theory, which offers mechanism for many biogeographical and macroecological patterns