Monday, December 29, 2014

My Year of Darwin 12/29/2014: Mountains as islands

 Charles Darwin

"A mountain is an island on the landCharles Darwin, Origin of Species 1st edition (on Kindle)

I think the first scholarly paper I read was Brown's Mammals on mountaintops. This was a criticism of island biogeography's simple (but useful) view of population dynamics in semi-isolated systems. But why compare islands to mountains at all? Darwin, and probably others, made the connection a century before island biogeography. 

Brown, J. H., 1971. Mammals on mountaintops: nonequilibrium insular biogeography. American Naturalist 467-478.


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