Front cover: Illustration by Kirsten MadsenFamous examples of island biodiversity: the dodo, a giant flightless dove, evolved and became extinct on Mauritius; the sea coconut, producer of the world's biggest seed, endemic to the Seychelles, possibly a relic from a sunken subcontinent; and the Darwin finches of the Galapagos Islands, inspiration for Darwin and later evolutionists and ubiquitous textbook example of adaptive radiation. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1995 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1 st edition 1995The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.Typesetting: Thomson Press (India) Ltd., Madras SPIN: 10426981 31!3130/SPS-5432 I 0 -Printed on acid-free paper program to provide new information from experiments specifically designed to address the diversity/function problem rather than relying on the imperfect information derived from inadvertent "experiments" instigated by human activities or from natural environmental fluctuations.Stanford, Spring 1995 Harold Mooney