Aspects of Zoogeography

Aspects of Zoogeography PDF

Author: P. Müller

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 9401023271

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Zoogeography aims to explain the structure, function and history of the geo graphical ranges of animals. The absence or presence of a species in a given place has ecological as well as historical causes. It is therefore a mistake to suppose that reconstructing the phylogenetic connections of a taxon will by itself give a definite picture of how its range originated. A purely ecological interpretation of the range could be equally misleading if it did not take into account the population-genetic structure underlying the geographical range. Phylogenetic systematics, population genetics, autecology and synecology have all their own methods, none of which can be substituted for another, without which a range cannot be studied or interpreted. The present book covers only certain aspects of the wide field of zoogeo graphy. These are in the form in which they were crystallised in the course of innumerable discussions with my teachers, my colleagues at home and abroad and my fellow workers, postgraduates and students at Saarbriicken, as well as in the zoogeographical part of may basic lectures on biogeography for the year 1973-1974. The chief emphasis is laid on the genetic and ecological macro structure of the biosphere as an arena for range structures and range dynamics, on urban ecosystems, which have hitherto been grossly neglected, and on the most recent history of ranges (the dispersal centre concept). The marine and fresh-water biocycles, on the other hand, have been dealt only briefly.

The Taxonomy, Systematics, and Zoogeography of Hypsibarbus, a New Genus of Large Barbs (Pisces, Cyprinidae) from the Rivers of Southeastern Asia

The Taxonomy, Systematics, and Zoogeography of Hypsibarbus, a New Genus of Large Barbs (Pisces, Cyprinidae) from the Rivers of Southeastern Asia PDF

Author: Walter J. Rainboth

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1996-01-01

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9780520098091

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In this study the author describes Hypsibarbus, a new genus of Asian cyprinid fishes with twelve species, three of them new. A complete set of 45 measurements and 17 counts was taken and analyzed for approximately 250 specimens, including all type material, of more than 1000 specimens encountered, representing most of the major fish collections of the world. The author fully redescribes and illustrates all species in the new genus, and includes keys for their identification. To provide a basis for understanding zoogeographic implications of the phylogeny obtained for Hypsibarbus, the geography and history of the Southeast Asia river basins is discussed in detail.

Euphrates and Tigris, Mesopotamian Ecology and Destiny

Euphrates and Tigris, Mesopotamian Ecology and Destiny PDF

Author: J. Rzóska

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 9400991711

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Scope and limitations of this book I am trying here to present the natural history of a land largely created and dominated by two great rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris. All rivers have two main functions, quite different from lakes; they transport water and eroded material sometimes over large distances. The astute Greeks, who penetrated here in the 4th century B.C., called the land Mesopotamia, an apt name; it is the only region in the Near East, except Egypt, having the benefit of large rivers. Another name coined in antiquity was 'Fertile Crescent', stretching from Egypt to present day Iraq; Herodotus marvelled at the fertility of the soils, the abundance of water and the magnificent cities of Mesopotamia. Thus a further role of some great rivers is recognized as foci of human development. The desire to collate this book arose from a similar motif as in the Nile book (1976), the intricate connection between man and rivers.

Faunal and Floral Migration and Evolution in SE Asia-Australasia

Faunal and Floral Migration and Evolution in SE Asia-Australasia PDF

Author: Ian Metcalfe

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2001-06-01

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 9789058093493

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This multidisciplinary book focuses on the relationships and interactions between palaeobiogeography, biogeography, dispersal, vicariance, migrations and evolution of organisms in the SE Asia-Australasian region. The book investigates biogeographic links between SE Asia and Australasia which go back more than 500 million years. It also focuses on the links between geological evolution and biological migrations and evolution in the region. It was in the SE Asian region that Alfred Russell Wallace established his biogeographic line, now known as Wallace's Line, which was the beginning of biogeography. Wallace also independently developed his theory of evolution based on his work in this area.;The book brings together, for the first time, geologists, palaeontologists, zoologists, botanists, entomologists, evolutionary biologists and archaeologists, in the one volume, to relate the region's geological past to its present biological peculiarities. The book is organized into six sections. Section 1 Paleobiogeographic Background provides overviews of the geological and tectonic evolution of SE Asia-Australasia, and changing patterns of land and sea for the last 540 million years. Section 2 Palaeozoic and Mesozoic Geology and Biogeography discusses Palaeozoic and Mesozoic biogeography of conodonts, brachiopods, plants, dinosaurs and radiolarians and the recognition of ancient biogeographic boundaries or Wallace Lines in the region. Section 3 Wallace's Line focuses on the biogeographic boundary established by Wallace, including the history of its establishment, its significance to biogeography in general and its applicability in the context of modern biogeography.;Section 4 Plant biogeography and evolution includes discussion on primitive angiosperms, the diaspora of the southern rushes, and environmental, climatic and evolutionary implications of plants and palynomorphs in the region. The biogeography and migration of insects, butterflies, birds, rodents and other non-primate mammals is discussed in section 5, Non Primates. The final section 6 Primates focuses on the biogeographic radiation, migration and evolution of primates and includes papers on the occurrence and migration of early hominids and the requirements for human colonization of Australia.

New Zealand Freshwater Fishes

New Zealand Freshwater Fishes PDF

Author: R.M. McDowall

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-07-27

Total Pages: 462

ISBN-13: 9048192714

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In many ways, this book is the culmination of more than four decades of my exp- ration of the taxonomy, biogeography and ecology of New Zealand’s quite small freshwater fish fauna. I began this firstly as a fisheries ecologist with the New Zealand Marine Department (then responsible for the nation’s fisheries research and mana- ment), and then with my PhD at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA in the early–mid 1960s. Since then, employed by a series of agencies that have successively been assigned a role in fisheries research in New Zealand, I have been able to explore very widely the natural history of that fauna. Studies of the fishes of other warm to cold temperate southern lands have followed, particularly southern Australia, New Caledonia, Patagonian South America, the Falkland Islands, and South Africa and, in many ways, have provided the rather broader context within which the New Zealand fauna is embedded in terms of geography, phylogeny, and evolutionary history, and knowing this context makes the patterns within New Zealand all the clearer. An additional stream in these studies, in substantial measure driven by the beh- ioural ecology of these fishes round the Southern Hemisphere, has been exploration of the role of diadromy (regular migrations between marine and freshwater biomes) in fisheries ecology and biogeography, and eventually of diadromous fishes wor- wide.

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