Island Biogeography

Robert J. Whittaker is Professor of Biogeography in the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford and holds a part time professorial position at the Centre for Macroecology, Evolution, and Climate in the University of Copenhagen. He is a cofounder and past President of the International Biogeography Society. He is coauthor of Island Biogeography: Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation (OUP, 2006). His research interests span island biogeography, diversity theory, macroecology, and conservation biogeography.José María Fernández-Palacios is Full Professor of Ecology at the La Laguna University, Tenerife, Spain. He is an internationally recognised researcher on island ecology and biogeography, and in 2019 was elected President of the Society of Island Biology (SIB), a scientific association of island researchers and managers worldwide. He is coauthor of Island Biogeography: Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation (OUP, 2006).Tom Matthews is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK. He researches global environmental change issues using macroecological, macroevolutionary and biogeographical approaches. He applies a mixture of theoretical and empirical methods to investigate various macroecological topics, including species-area relationships and species abundance distributions. He has a keen interest in island systems, and in particular the application of island theory to habitat island systems.

• Preface and AcknowledgementsPART 1: Setting the Scene: Islands as Natural Laboratories1: The natural laboratory paradigm2: Island types, origins, and dynamics3: Island environments4: The biogeography of island life: biodiversity hotspots in contextPART 2: Island Ecology5: Island macroecology6: Assembly rules for island metacommunities7: Extending the timescale: island biodynamics in response to island geodynamicsPART 3: Island Evolution8: Colonization, evolutionary change, and speciation9: Evolutionary diversification across islands and archipelagos10: Island evolutionary syndromes in animals11: Island evolutionary syndromes in - and involving - plantsPART 4: Human Impact and Conservation12: The application of island theory to fragmented landscapes13: The human transformation of island ecosystems14: Anthropogenic extinction on islands: a synthesis15: Meeting the conservation challenge

The book successfully captures the vibrancy and dynamism of research and conservation work performed on islands, while positioning island biogeography as a crucial discipline for tackling major 21st-century challenges.