Biogeography in theAnnals

Abstract

Biogeography has been consistently well represented in the Annals throughout the Association of American Geographers' first century. This sample of biogeographic research effectively illustrates the persistent questions explored by the subdiscipline as well as changes in the intellectual perspectives taken on them. Four fundamental issues occupied biogeographers throughout this period (spatial pattern and process, landscape change, human modification of biotic communities, and linking physical and biological systems), but shifting research emphases show clear parallels to the major paradigmatic trends of 20th‐century geography, including environmental determinism, regionalism, positivism, and postmodernism. These shifts define a number of fairly distinct periods of research activity: an early (1904–1927) focus on equilibrium environmental control of biotic communities and their dynamics, regional analysis and vegetation mapping (1942–1966), an increasing emphasis on methodological sophistication that prompted emphasis of environmental variability (1967–1987), and a recent (1987–present) reexamination of landscape dynamics with a concern for heterogeneity in space and time.

Identification of Biodiversity Conservation Priorities using Predictive Modeling: An Application for the Equatorial Pacific Region of South America

“…The combined effects of these processes can cause an overestimation of the potential distributions of the target species in the Equatorial Pacific region, affecting the estimation of the conservation goals (Table 5). Much current research in applied biogeography is focused on these and other consequences of spatial and temporal heterogeneity (Young et al 2003;Cowell and Parker 2004).…”

The Biogeography of Geographers: A Content Visualization of Journal Publications

“…Forest disturbance ecology was the predominant research focus. This is due to the historical overlap between ecologists and geographers (Cowell and Parker, 2004). The earliest roots of biogeography-Darwin, Wallace, Humbolt-are also claimed by ecologists .…”

“…How does their work fit in the larger world of biogeography? Although there are excellent historical summaries of the field of biogeography as undertaken by geographers (Cowell and Parker, 2004), the goal of this paper is to characterize their scholarship based on a material identity: a sample of their aggregate publication output. Using peer-reviewed papers authored by the Biogeography Specialty Group (BSG) of the Association of American Geographers, I performed data visualization to characterize publication structure and content.…”

“…Geographic biogeographers are clearly pluralistic, but they are also pragmatic (Rhoads, 1999;Cowell and Parker, 2004). Pragmatic used here does not imply that their research is oriented only toward devising practical answers to practical problems (although part of it is).…”

Patterns and Processes of Tree Islands in Two Transitional Environments: Alpine Treeline and Bog Forest‐Meadow Ecotones

“…The goal of pattern–process research is to generate knowledge on how earth systems (e.g. slope process, climate) affect plant distributions, and also how plant distributions affect earth systems (Cowell and Parker 2004).…”