Chapter 13: Marine Biogeography

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The student of history follows, with intense interest, the march of a conqueror, or the migrations of a nation. . . . Yet, absurd as it may seem to those who have not thought of such things before, there is a deeper interest in the march of a periwinkle, and the progress of a limpet. Edw. Forbes INTRODUCTION While many ecologists apparently consider biogeography to be that branch of ecology concerned with describing in somewhat static terms the systematic distribution of plants and animals, some biogeographers evidently consider ecology a minor branch of biogeography; Dansereau (1951), for example, regards ecology as simply one of the “integrative levels” of biogeography. Neither extreme is tenable, for the distribution of organisms in time and space is an essential facet of ecology, and biogeography is intimately dependent on the findings of ecology; studies of evolution, in turn, rely heavily on the findings of biogeography. The study of the biogeography of ecological units (communities) is, however, a comparatively recent development, and much of the current literature of biogeography is still concerned with the classic problems of the distribution of species, genera, and families—i.e., it is systematic and historical rather than ecological in its approach. It must be emphasized, however, that the distribution of systematic units must be analyzed before that of ecological units. Indeed, the biogeography of marine communities, first attempted in a comprehensive manner by Clements and Shelford (1939, p. 313–353), is still a pioneer subject. For example, the summary provided by...

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