Biogeography and biogeographical principles

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Abstract
A fundamental problem of biogeography is whether it is an independent, primary discipline with its own methods and principles, or whether it is a secondary discipline dependent on some other branch of science, such as geology. Historically this problem first emerged in the work of Charles Darwin. Darwin in his first “Transmutation of Species” notebook (1837-1838) used biogeographic evidence to erect novel geological hypotheses. These included a continental drift theory in which all the continents were grouped together into the middle of the Pacific Ocean, greatly increasing the width of the Atlantic Ocean (Fig. 1). Subsequently in his “On the Origin of Species” (1859) he rejected that view and argued vehemently in favour of the permanence of continents and oceans (Fig. 2). In his mature work particular geological theories were used as the basis upon which biogeographic narratives were constructed. Alfred Wegener's continental drift theory (1929) differed from Darwin's in that it united the North and South American continents with Eurasia and Africa across the Atlantic Ocean, greatly widening the Pacific (Fig. 3). Wegener's theory involved neither the primacy of geology over biogeography, nor vice versa, but rather stressed the congruence between hypotheses of earth and biogeographic history, i.e., geology and biogeography were seen as separate but reciprocally illuminating disciplines. This drift solution, generally accepted today, involves the concept of ancestral cosmopolitan biota distributed over the ancient super continent Pangaea, that fragments initally into Laurasian and Gondwana components, followed by subsequent division of these into distinctive African, South American, Australian, New Zealand, North American, etc., vicariance biota.