Symposium summary — organizer’s perspective: Biogeography and ecology: two lenses in one telescope

Abstract

news and update ISSN 1948‐6596 symposium summary — organizer’s perspective Biogeography and ecology: two lenses in one telescope A symposium at the 5th International Biogeography Society Conference – Heraklion, Greece, 7– 11 January 2011 Biogeography and ecology had common roots in natural history but have been largely separate dis‐ ciplines for decades, as evidenced by their distinct journals and professional societies. A dichotomous key to the disciplines might separate biogeography and modern ecology as explicitly historical and ahistorical, respectively (McIntosh 1985, Lomolino et al. 2010). In addition, experimental ecology has necessarily focused on local‐scale processes and patterns that operate over relatively short time intervals, whereas biogeography has typically fo‐ cused on processes and patterns that operate over long time intervals and larger spatial scales. Thus, biogeography and ecology may be considered at first glance to be very different views of nature. In spite of their divergent histories, biogeog‐ raphy and ecology are increasingly converging on intermediate spatial and temporal scales, as evi‐ denced by theoretical and empirical research on metapopulations, metacommunities, regional communities, and evolutionary ecology (e.g. Rick‐ lefs and Schluter 1993, Hanski and Gaggioti 2004, Holyoak et al. 2005, Emerson and Gillespie 2008, Ricklefs 2007, 2008, Cavender‐Bares et al. 2009). This convergence has resulted from the matura‐ tion and extension of each discipline and from in‐ creasing attention to global climate change and its effects at regional scales. As the temporal and spa‐ tial scales of biogeographical and ecological con‐ cepts increasingly overlap, the two disciplines risk developing separate conceptual imagery, jargon, and expectations for the same natural phenom‐ ena. If biogeography and ecology are to inform the conservation and management of nature amidst the simultaneous pressures of 7‐plus billion people and global climate change, these disciplines must speak the same language to talk about common concepts. To extend the visual metaphor of the Symposium title, the two lenses of biogeography and ecology need to be aligned to form one tele‐ scope through which we receive clear and accurate conceptual images of the natural world and human impacts. As part of the 5 th International Biogeography Society meeting in Crete (7–11 January 2011), a symposium was convened entitled “Biogeography and ecology: Two lenses in one telescope”. Speak‐ ers were organized in pairs: one ecologist and one biogeographer were each assigned to a topic and asked to converse with each other in advance of the Symposium. After an introduction by David Jenkins outlining the background of the Sympo‐ sium, four topics relevant to both disciplines were addressed by the eight speakers; niche, compara‐ tive ecology/macro‐ecology, community assembly, and diversity. Jonathan Chase addressed core issues with a summary of ecological niche concepts and sug‐ gested that divergent ecological and biogeographic views of niche might be regarded as ‘MacArthur's Paradox’ (Robert MacArthur contributed mightily to both ecological niche and island biogeography theory). Dr. Chase also explained more recent ex‐ tensions of ecological niche research, including neutral theory and the use of null models to distin‐ guish niche‐based and stochastic processes driving community structure. John Wiens then considered the niche concept at biogeographic scales (e.g. species ranges), and noted that abiotic tolerances have been prominent in biogeography while biotic interactions remain relatively unstudied as drivers of large‐scale distribution. Dr. Wiens also argued that biogeography should incorporate species' ecology and niche into explanations for species distributions. Phylogeny is explicit in much of biogeogra‐ phy, but not often in ecology. However, Robert Poulin emphasized the benefit of a phylogenetic context and consideration of ecological traits (e.g. niche breadth) to modern comparative ecology. Dr. Poulin’s research on parasites highlighted the intersection between ecology and biogeography when he described the interaction of host specific‐ ity, life cycle, and host mobility as factors affecting frontiers of biogeography 3.1, 2011 — © 2011 the authors; journal compilation © 2011 The International Biogeography Society