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Inside you lies a precise scientific instrument – the ability to observe Nature and recall past experiences. You were born with it and you use it every day. You can be trained to use it more effectively to, for example, compare and discover new species of organisms or new minerals. Our senses do have limitations, and we often use microscopes, telescopes and other tools to aid our observation. However, we benefit from knowing their limitations and the impact they have on our ability to combine our observations and our experience to make decisions. Once these tools replace our direct observation and our experience we ourselves become disconnected from Nature. Scientific practice turns into w...
This book presents a revised history of early biogeography and investigates the split in taxonomic practice, between the classification of taxa and the classification of vegetation. It moves beyond the traditional belief that biogeography is born from a synthesis of Darwin and Wallace and focuses on the important pioneering work of earlier practitioners such as Zimmermann, Stromeyer, de Candolle and Humboldt. Tracing the academic history of biogeography over the decades and centuries, this book recounts the early schisms in phyto and zoogeography, the shedding of its bonds to taxonomy, its adoption of an ecological framework and its beginnings at the dawn of the 20th century. This book asses...
Les progrès récents des méthodes d’analyse en biologie, impliquant différentes disciplines, ouvrent un large panel d’études qui fait aujourd’hui de la biogéographie une approche intégrative de l’évolution du vivant. En tant que telle, la biogéographie va bien au-delà d’une simple description de la répartition des espèces vivantes sur Terre. La biogéographie est une discipline où écologistes et évolutionnistes cherchent à comprendre la manière dont les espèces vivantes s’organisent en relation avec leur environnement. Face aux défis majeurs tels que le réchauffement climatique, l’extinction massive d’espèces ou les pandémies, la biogéographie fournit les éléments indispensables à l’élaboration des solutions. La biogéographie présente un large aperçu des différents domaines de cette discipline. Les auteurs internationaux y développent différentes analyses sur la base de leurs connaissances et de leur expérience, illustrant les vastes domaines couverts par la biogéographie.
Dieses Insularium erzählt eine Kultur-, Literatur- und Wissensgeschichte von Inseln, Menschen, Tieren und Zeit im Möglichkeitsraum des Pazifiks. In achtzehn exemplarischen Inselerkundungen – von der faktualen Isla Juan Fernandez über das historische Formosa und das berühmte Pitcairn bis zur fiktionalen Pip's Island – erzählen Roland Borgards, Lena Kugler und Mira Shah eine Geschichte des pazifischen Inselmeers. Zwei Themenbereiche tauchen auf diesen Pazifischen Passagen immer wieder auf: Zum einen liefern die Autor:innen Fragmente der Entstehungsgeschichte der Inselbiogeographie und schlagen gleichzeitig vor, sie zu einer Inselkulturbiogeographie zu erweitern. Zum anderen geht es ih...
This new edition of a foundational text presents a contemporary review of cladistics, as applied to biological classification. It provides a comprehensive account of the past fifty years of discussion on the relationship between classification, phylogeny and evolution. It covers cladistics in the era of molecular data, detailing new advances and ideas that have emerged over the last twenty-five years. Written in an accessible style by internationally renowned authors in the field, readers are straightforwardly guided through fundamental principles and terminology. Simple worked examples and easy-to-understand diagrams also help readers navigate complex problems that have perplexed scientists for centuries. This practical guide is an essential addition for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in taxonomy, systematics, comparative biology, evolutionary biology and molecular biology.
Why—against his mentor’s exhortations to publish—did Charles Darwin take twenty years to reveal his theory of evolution by natural selection? In Darwin’s Evolving Identity, Alistair Sponsel argues that Darwin adopted this cautious approach to atone for his provocative theorizing as a young author spurred by that mentor, the geologist Charles Lyell. While we might expect him to have been tormented by guilt about his private study of evolution, Darwin was most distressed by harsh reactions to his published work on coral reefs, volcanoes, and earthquakes, judging himself guilty of an authorial “sin of speculation.” It was the battle to defend himself against charges of overzealous t...
In Ecology on the Ground and in the Clouds, Andrea Nye raises a question: In a time of climate change and environmental crisis, where should we look for inspiration? Is it to Alexander von Humboldt, the "inventor of nature" who viewed the cosmos from the lofty peak of Mount Chimborazo? Or is it to Humboldt's travel partner, the botanist Aimé Bonpland, who left Europe behind for forty years of conservation, agroforestry, and cooperative farming in the newly independent Republic of Argentina? For Bonpland, order and harmony are not unveiled with European reason and insight; they are made on the ground by intelligent, honorable, and diverse working men and women. Cosmos is not a hidden balance of nature; it is order in thought and action that ensures what we do is coherent and for the common good. It is fair and efficient government, just adjudication of disputes, and good management. It is loving attention to intricate "cogs and wheels" of natural processes at the same time as imagining new forms of beauty and stability in human communities and working landscapes.
The Invention of Humboldt is a game-changing volume of essays by leading scholars of the Hispanic world that explodes many myths about Alexander von Humboldt and his world. Rather than ‘follow in Humboldt’s footsteps,’ this book outlines the new critical horizon of post-Humboldtian Humboldt studies: the archaeology of all that lies buried under the Baron’s epistemological footprint. Contrary to the popular image of Humboldt as a solitary ‘adventurer’ and ‘hero of science’ surrounded by New World nature, The Invention of Humboldt demonstrates that the Baron’s opus and practice was largely derivative of the knowledge communities and archives of the Hispanic world. Although Hu...
The story of the evolution of biogeographical practice in Australasia.