Frontiers Of Biogeography Research Articles

Frontiers of Biogeography relaunched with Pensoft Publishers

Frontiers of Biogeography, the scientific journal of The International Biogeography Society (TIBS), is now being published in partnership with Pensoft Publishers, who provide a sophisticated review and publication platform, enhancing publication and dissemination of scholarly work for authors. Frontiers of Biogeography has been selected for inclusion in the Web of Science™. The International Biogeography Society is committed to the growth and success of Frontiers of Biogeography as a service to biogeographical science. Frontiers of Biogeography will continue to support low cost, high quality, high visibility, open-access publishing for biogeographers.

Writing the future of biogeography

Scientific publishing has seen many changes in its ~350 years of existence. Nonetheless, the changes currently underway may be among the most radical. The five major biogeography journals (Diversity and Distributions, Ecography, Frontiers of Biogeography, Global Ecology and Biogeography, and Journal of Biogeography) are indicative of the major undercurrents in publishing today: two are society owned, three are owned by a private publisher; two are open access, three are reader-pays; four are published by a for‐profit publisher, one is not; three are double-blind review, two are the traditional single blind. Despite these differences, we serve as editors-in-chief for these journals for one common reason: to make sure there is a healthy publishing ecosystem available to communicate biogeographical research. With that goal in mind, here, we provide a brief potted history of scientific publishing to contextualize the modern publishing environment. We consider what current trends may mean for the future of scientific publishing. And we highlight a suite of factors that we recommend be considered when choosing a venue in which to publish your research. We particularly wish to emphasize one point: while editors-in-chief may guide journals, and editors and reviewers shape the science that is published, all journals depend ultimately on the manuscripts that authors choose to submit. For this reason, authors have great power over the future of the publishing landscape. To ensure a healthy landscape, we feel it is critical that all authors—but especially we senior and mid-career authors—are educated about today’s complex world of publication and make informed choices about where to submit, which signals to publishers the criteria that our community values. Authors’ choices now have potential to shape a sustainable publishing environment that better serves current and future generations of biogeographers.

Frontiers of Biogeography: taking its place as a journal of choice for the publication of high quality biogeographical research articles

CITATION: Whittaker, R. J., et al. 2018. Frontiers of Biogeography : taking its place as a journal of choice for the publication of high quality biogeographical research articles. Frontiers of Biogeography, 10(1-2):e40499, doi:10.21425/F5FBG40499.

Noted with interest

book reviews ISSN 1948-6596 books noted with interest Dispersal, Individual Movement and Spatial Ecology: A Mathematical Perspective Mark A. Lewis, Philip K. Maini & Sergei V.Petrovskii 2013, Springer, 385pp. £62.99 (Paperback) ISBN: 978-3-642-35496-0 http://www.springer.com Understanding how the behav- iour of individuals leads to the distribution of populations in space is a challeng- ing topic, and one that has attracted the interest of mathematicians, both theoretical and applied. The sophistication of the approaches presented here goes far beyond the standard in the current biological literature and is not for the faint- hearted or mathematically illiterate. As we in- creasingly recognise that the emergent properties of natural systems depend upon the actions of individuals, it is worth engaging with this research and bridging the divide between disciplines. Chap- ters on invasions and range shifts will be of most relevance to biogeographers. Earth and Life: Global biodiversity, extinction inter- vals and biogeographic perturbations through time John A. Talent (editor) 2012, Springer, 1107 pp. £90 (Hardback), ISBN: 978-90-481-3427-4 http://www.springer.com The key to understanding future changes in the natural world is contained in the past, a perspective to which this substantial tome makes an impressive contribu- tion. An open editorial approach has led to highly variable chapters, best viewed as a series of 36 reviews which range from overarching summaries to focussed investigations of particular time peri- ods, taxa or localities. Together they succeed in documenting not only the ever-increasing diver- sity of life but its many setbacks, probing far be- yond the standard 'big five' mass extinctions and explaining not only what was lost (and why) but what survived and the long-term repercussions. Encyclopedia of Modern Coral Reefs: Struc- ture, Form and Process David Hopley (editor) 2011, Springer, 1236 pp. £359.30 (Hardback) ISBN: 978-90-481-2638-5 http://www.springer.com Another addition to Springer's range of mammoth tomes ad- dressing important fields across the sciences, this cov- ers the geology, biotic composition and physical geog- raphy of coral reefs around the world though 260 fully referenced entries. These are dedicated to reef features, descriptions of specific regions, methodo- logical approaches, and biographies of notable figures in the history of coral reef science from Darwin on- wards. Presented largely from the perspective of earth sciences, this will nonetheless prove to be a valuable reference for biogeographers working in these systems. Climate change has become a domi- nant theme of reef research in recent years and is well-represented here. Sharks of the World: A Fully Illustrated Guide David A. Ebert, Sarah Fowler & Leonard Compagno 2013, Wild Nature Press, 528 pp. £45 (Hardback) ISBN: 978-0-9573946-0-5 http://wildnaturepress.com The importance of predation by sharks in regulating marine systems is now well established, as are the threats to their persistence, thanks to the recent completion of the conservation status of all species by IUCN. What has been lacking to date, however, has been a global-scale assessment of the distribution of the more than 500 shark species (over a third de- scribed in the last decade). After an outline of their overall biology and taxonomy, the appearance, distri- bution, characteristic habitat and behaviour of each species is outlined. Excellent illustrations make this useful as a field guide as well as a data mine. Markus Eichhorn University of Nottingham, UK frontiers of biogeography 5.3, 2013 — © 2013 the authors; journal compilation © 2013 The International Biogeography Society

How the landscape of publishing is changing biogeography

Author(s): Dawson, Michael N; Stigall, Alycia L; Hortal, Joaquin | Abstract: Open access, shifting publishing mores, predatory journals, reviewer over-burden are just a few of the factors reshaping modern scientific publishing. How are changes in the publishing environment influencing biogeography? Over the past eight years, 63 different titles have been among the 25 journals publishing most “biogeography” articles in any given year; a small nucleus of journals has consistently published a large proportion of “biogeography” papers. Yet, the journals enjoying the largest positive trends—e.g. increasing share of biogeography publications and increasing Impact Factor—are outside of the nucleus; they are emerging open access ‘mega-journals’ that offer simplified criteria for publication. From the fault lines appearing across the publishing landscape, we see opportunities emerging for Frontiers of Biogeography as a vigorous hybrid model that leverages the strengths of ‘old world’ and ‘new world’ approaches to disseminating scientific knowledge and nurtures mutual benefits.

Biologists in deserts

e-ISSN: 1948-6596 https://escholarship.org/uc/fb doi:10.21425/F59235476 Book Review Biologists in deserts Plant Ecology in the Middle East, by Ahmad Hegazy & Jonathan Lovett-Doust, 2016 Oxford University Press, 368 pp. ISBN: 9780199660810 The Biology of Deserts, 2nd edition, by David Ward, 2016 Oxford University Press, 400 pp. ISBN: 9780198732754 What is the great emotional draw of desert envi- ronments? I first encountered the biology of de- serts (or “desserts”, as our undergraduates are wont to write) in 1986. An Egyptian PhD student's scholarship mandated a trip to Egypt at the start of the project to plan the fieldwork. Thus it was that I got to spend ten days travelling about in the South Sinai mountains in the company of a set of young Egyptian students, my introduction to the scientific study of deserts in the shadow of Mt Sinai and the Monastery of St Catherine. It was a magical experience, and I returned raving about how beautiful it was. When my wife came with me a few years later, she was also instantly conver- ted, and we have spent our academic lives in- volved with the ‘howling wilderness’ and its won- derful people. On my return in 1986 I tried to get hold of a textbook on desert biology, and could only find the very old and out-of-date volume 'Biology of Deserts' edited by Cloudsley-Thompson (1954). There was a clear gap in the market. Today we are much better served, and these two recent volu- mes demonstrate it in spades. The first edition of David Ward’s Biology of De- serts was published in 2009 to some acclaim. It is a volume in the Biology of Habitats series of OUP, aimed at igniting the interest of young researchers rather than being a source of reference for spe- cialists. The 2nd edition has more emphasis on land-use changes caused by humans. The book's great strength lies in the way that the author's extensive experience, especially with both Middle Eastern and South African desert systems, under- lies and informs the understanding being commu- nicated. He has set out deliberately to take an evolutionary approach and to integrate Frontiers of Biogeography 2017, 9.2, e35476 knowledge from across all the desert systems of the world. The material is organised as a modern ecology textbook, from individual organisms to ecosystems, with chapters on the abiotic environ- ment, adaptations of both plants and then ani- mals to those abiotic conditions, before moving to considering species interactions in various forms, and ending with desert ecosystems, human im- pacts and the conservation of deserts. The combi- nation of the more traditional description of some of the amazing adaptations of desert organisms with modern ecology's emphasis on species inter- actions, both direct and indirect, is especially effective. The book certainly succeeds in its aim of stimulating interest in desert systems at a fairly straightforward level: I wish it had existed in 1986! However, the literature of today is slightly less well represented than perhaps it might have been. Ward might have included more of a prescription of what needs to be done, rather like the books on aphid ecology that Tony Dixon wrote in retirement -- short, deceptively simple, yet compelling guides to what theory we still lack. In Dixon's wonderful phrase, we need theory to reveal patterns and processes so that we need no longer to record the fall of every apple” (Dixon 2000). Like a reviewer of the first edition, I think an opportunity was missed, for example, to consider processes as functions of aridity gradients. I only found one such plot in the book, the species richness (of ro- dents) versus mean rainfall. It would be very inter- esting to put together all such plots in the litera- ture on 'arid' lands. I have been struck so many times when reading such papers that the arid end of the 'aridity' gradient often starts at values far higher than are ever recorded in Egypt. But then, Egypt is the most arid country in the world! © the authors, CC-BY license

Desk-based deep sea exploration

e-ISSN: 1948-6596 https://escholarship.org/uc/fb doi:10.21425/F59235175 Book Review Desk-based deep sea exploration Biological Sampling in the Deep Sea, by Malcolm R. Clark, Mireille Consalvey, and Ashley A. Rowden (editors), 2016 Wiley-Blackwell, 466 pp., ISBN: 9780470656747 “Well if you go one-on-one with a limpet you can learn an enormous amount. You can do that. How do you do that with a great white shark or blue whale? There’s this barrier to what I would call natural history.” Bob Paine, interviewed in 2013 1 As a macroecologist, I don't get out much. Grow- ing fat on Other People’s Data, the temptation is simply to sit and process and analyse and publish on whatever system provides the best API (Application Programming Interface). However, I have always shared Paine’s view that it is im- portant to have a feel for the natural history of your subject too. Starting out, I worked -- as was more or less obligatory at the time, for a macroe- cologist -- on birds. I'm no twitcher, but I do get birds. I enjoy watching them, and have a sense of their lives and of their interactions with the envi- ronment. There is no barrier to natural history there, especially working with a nice colour field guide at hand to remind me of the feathered real- ity of my rows of data. Shifting my focus to the macroecology of marine ecosystems, I maintained a similar rou- tine: greedily hoovering up data, keeping a stock of glossy pictures and natural history monographs close by. This was all well and good when working on the shelf seas. I had never been out for more than a few hours of boat based sampling, but the general process -- whether sampling by trawl, box core, or scuba -- was at least familiar enough that the idea of going ‘one-on-one’ with the organisms did not feel outlandish. But then I started to ven- ture off the shelf, into the world’s biggest ecosys- tems in the deep sea (e.g. Webb et al. 2010). In this alien setting, even something as apparently straightforward as casting and hauling in a net starts to seem unfeasible as you realise that the cables involved must be passing 3, 4, 5 km in length… I approached Clark et al.’s book, then, probably not as a member of its main target audi- ence. I had no intention of putting any of the de- tailed protocols for different sampling gears into practice 2 , but read it rather as someone hoping to get a feel for the labour that has gone into the data I analyse, and thus of its potential and limi- tations for macroecological research. Even viewed from this somewhat oblique angle, the book stands up very well. The first chapters pre- sent a broad overview of the ‘deep sea’, and in so doing reveal its complexities and heterogeneities. Tyler et al. (Chapter 1) provide an excellent pri- mer on the habitats of the deep sea floor, as well as a very readable history of key points in its dis- covery, from the early ‘heroic’ age through the first quantitative studies and on to the finer scale, more systematic approaches now possible using new imaging and geolocation technologies. For instance, they show how recent, high resolution exploration of the abyssal plain -- previously thought to be flat and boring -- has revealed in- teresting biogenic and abiotic structuring down to sub-metre scales. In the next chapter, Schiaparelli et al. move from habitats to organisms, with an overview of key deep sea taxa as well as of broad patterns in their distribution. This covers several topics likely to be of interest to macroecologists, including the widespread occurrence of both miniaturisation and of gigantism in the deep sea, driven largely by energetics. They also describe the feature that has really drawn me to deep sea macroecology: 1 http://www.biodiverseperspectives.com/2013/09/10/diverse-introspectives-a-conversation-with-bob-paine/ 2 Or so I thought: by a strange twist of fate I write this on board the RV Pelican in the Gulf of Mexico, a mile and more of cable stretching below us. But that’s another story. Frontiers of Biogeography 2017, 9.2, e35175 © the authors, CC-BY license

As natural as it gets

e-ISSN: 1948-6596 https://escholarship.org/uc/fb doi:10.21425/F59134085 Book Review As natural as it gets Natural Systems: The Organisation of Life, by Markus P. Eichhorn, 2016 Wiley-Blackwell, 392 pp. ISBN: 978-1-118-90588-3 Life, as a very special manifestation of the hierar- chical organization of matter, can be studied at various levels, or simultaneously at multiple levels as evinced by the fast growing fields of molecular ecology, evo-devo, and eco-evo. The importance of these relatively new fields notwithstanding, recent developments in more traditional disci- plines such as biogeography and community ecol- ogy are also exciting and can offer crucial insights into the way life manifests on our planet. Several textbooks offer nice accounts of findings in these fields (e.g., Morin 2011, Mittelbach 2012, Begon et al. 2014, Ricklefs and Relyea 2014), and one might think that there is no space left for a fresh textbook view on issues like ecological diversity, biotic communities, island biogeography, etc. Markus Eichhorn did not seem to agree, though, and came up with a book that justly attracts atten- tion (Eichhorn 2016), not so much by its some- what exceptional title – Natural Systems: The Or- ganisation of Life – but mostly by its focus on im- portant questions and a structure that combines the virtues of a compilation of self-sufficient chap- ters with a coherently unfolding volume. Each chapter starts with a ‘big question’ justifying its theme and ends with suggestions for future work plus a selection of the chapter’s references as rec- ommended reading. It is certain that different au- thors might formulate the ‘big questions’ in a different way or even focus on different questions, but Eichhorn does not pretend to be ‘objective’ in any absolute sense. He explicitly offers his person- al opinion in most debates explored, though with- out undermining the breadth of coverage and the quintessential authoritative character of a text- book. This alone is an admirable accomplishment; the insightful walk through the extensive and vari- able literature on each topic is another. Basic concepts are introduced in the first chapter where the author straightforwardly dis- Frontiers of Biogeography 2017, 9.I, e34085 credits the Clementian ‘super-organism’ view of ecological systems in a balanced nature, a view commonly held by non-experts. Next, Eichhorn goes on with an admittedly far from exhaustive critique of the species concept, mostly used to alert the reader that species should be considered as dynamic entities or even tentative hypotheses, always keeping in mind what they do and do not represent. The brief reference to the history of life that follows is mainly an introduction to the une- venness of diversity among lineages. Next, the author focuses on estimates of global species rich- ness, pinpointing problems with simplistic meth- ods and techniques that may lead to absurd esti- mations. As Eichhorn points out, evidently biased or downright inappropriate methods (I would also add their analogs in estimating ‘background ex- tinction rates’) all too often find their way to high- ly ranked journals (see He and Hubbell 2011), ob- viously due solely to the ‘sexiness’ of their subject. Chapters 5 to 9 are grouped as Part II dedi- cated to ‘Diversity’, and reasonably start with is- sues related to the measurement of diversity. Here Eichhorn introduces important concepts and tools, such as species accumulation curves, the lognormal distribution with its ‘veil line’, species turnover as pertaining to beta-diversity, and some common metrics of diversity. Chapter 5 is accom- panied by an Appendix with a working example, enabling the reader to become familiar with met- rics and concepts, playing with real data. This is a key chapter, of course, and the Appendix is well- structured and useful. Nevertheless, it might give a somewhat imbalanced nuance to the book, as similar quantitative exercises are lacking from oth- er equally important chapters. The chapter that follows will probably evoke strong responses from people working on ecological niches, since Eichhorn supports that a theoretical framework based on the ‘R* rule’ (or © the authors, CC-BY license

Introduction, Establishment, Invasion, Accommodation: innovation and disruption in biogeographic publishing

Author(s): Dawson, Michael N; Field, Richard; Hortal, Joaquin; Stigall, Alycia L. | Abstract: Frontiers of Biogeography launched eight years ago, merging the missions of a newsletter and a book, to deliver a series of integrative and interdisciplinary volumes to a diverse community of biogeographers. The journal purposefully was pitched as a 'magazine' aiming to distinguish itself from existing biogeography journals with syntheses and prospectives that would push forward the boundaries of biogeography philosophy and practice. Here, we review the development of the journal since 2009, we survey the journal's current niche in the biogeography publishing ecosystem, and we look forward to changes in the coming year(s) that will further advance our mission to enhance your biogeographical research.

A new edition for Ecology of North America

book reviews frontiers of biogeography 8.4, e31122, 2016 A new edition for Ecology of North America Ecology of North America (2nd edn). Brian R. Chapman and Eric G. Bolen John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 2015, 334 pp. ISBN13: 9781118971543 www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell The disciplines of ecology and biogeography are so closely intertwined that many scholars of these respective fields are, by necessity and shared in- terest, well versed in both (Jenkins and Ricklefs 2011). This overlap is evident in the layout of Ecol- ogy of North America. With a scalable subject such as ecosystems, the authors could have ap- proached the discussion of their material from various angles. Their decision to employ a biome- structured theme to describe the assemblage of North American ecosystems is both logical and practical. This approach is certain to be appealing to biogeographers who use the textbook. In fact, this book could be used as a supplementary text- book in a biogeography class. Ecology of North America will serve as a good introductory text for students interested in the ecology of the continent. The book begins with an overview chapter of basic ecological prin- ciples and terms, including sound explanations of succession, biodiversity, and biogeography. Subse- quent chapters are individually devoted to various North American ecosystems/biomes. These chap- ters define the unique attributes of each biome and fluidly address the important abiotic and bio- tic components of each, along with representative plant and animal assemblages, interactions, and adaptations, as well as characteristic biome-level disturbances and ecological challenges. Both au- thors are wildlife ecology experts, yet their knowledge and understanding of plant ecology and their success in balancing the text between floral and faunal ecological discussions are both refreshing and impressive. The authors are careful and right to point out the major differences between biomes and ecosystems, but with a text that relies on a biome- structured outline, the omission of tropical sea- sonal forest and tropical rain forest biomes is marked. The authors admittedly target an audi- ence of “both undergraduate students and the general public” and aimed to write the text in a “user-friendly format.” Oftentimes, content must be edited and limited to achieve such goals, but these two major biomes that cover vast expanses of Mexico and Central America should be included in a comprehensive text of North American eco- systems. The inclusion of “infoboxes” is a meaningful addition; this type of aside succeeds in adding in- terest and depth to textbooks. Comprehensive bibliographies are included after each chapter, and the division of each one by chapter sub- headings is helpful. The chapters, however, could benefit from regional maps to remind students of the spatial distributions of each ecosystem, as well as brief, end-of-chapter summative and synthetic sections that include suggested questions for deeper thought. Such materials often help stu- dents see ‘big-picture’ applications of themes they have just read. Chapter 6, “Regional grasslands and related areas”, is a welcome expansion of the previous chapter on plains and prairies. I found myself wanting more of this type of expanded case-study approach for the other biomes ad- dressed in the text. Chapter 12, “A selection of special environments”, is a similarly assembled and written chapter; I found these chapters to be two of the most interesting and well written in the book. Chapter 11, “Coastal environments”, is new to this edition and introduces key information on arguably the most ecologically important collec- tion of environments in this age of globally warm- ing temperature and sea-level rise. Ecology is a dynamic field of study, and there are several comprehensive works that de- scribe biomes and ecosystems on varying scales. Readers wishing to explore an exhaustive explana- tion of North American biomes, but with little mention of faunal interactions, should read Bar- bour and Billings (2000). Others (e.g., Molles 2015; Cain et al. 2013) offer well-written, compre- hensive, and traditional ecology textbooks, but with a global focus that does not offer the same frontiers of biogeography 8.4, 2016 — © 2016 the authors; journal compilation © 2016 The International Biogeography Society

A lifetime's tribute to Asian forests

book reviews frontiers of biogeography 8.4, e33133, 2016 A lifetime's tribute to Asian forests On the Forests of Tropical Asia: Lest the Memory Fade, by Peter S. Ashton, 2014, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 672pp. GBP 110 (Hardback) ISBN: 9781842464755. Peter Ashton is a forest polymath: an ecologist, field botanist, taxonomist, an arboretum director and a forestry and international development ad- viser. Over fifty years he has traveled widely in and studied the forests of South and Southeast Asia, with an intellectual appetite that is both ad- mirable and intimidating. Now he is sharing his reflections on the ecology, evolution and manage- ment of these forests in a rich, thick and beautiful- ly illustrated book. The book represents an invalu- able historical record of one person’s passionate engagement with the shrinking forests of Asia, but is also far more: by organising and synthesising a vast amount of literature and personal experi- ence, it is a gift to researchers and policy makers trying to understand and manage these forests. Ashton is explicit that he considers this book to be a collection of essays, full of creative discussion and speculation, and not primarily a textbook. The book’s form however follows a topi- cal classification typical of a textbook on forests, from climate and forest structure to human im- pacts on the forest, and the book is organised into a deep hierarchy of sections. This makes it possi- ble to quickly locate writings relevant to a particu- lar topic, and means that the book could be profit- ably used as a text for a class on Asian forest is- sues. However, this highly sectioned organisation does trade off against flow, and the essays are less integrated than they might have been if the chap- ters were more continuous. Irrespective of format, the book admirably achieves one of the author’s primary goals, that of offering students a rich selection of questions to stimulate research interests and to shape disserta- tions. In this, Ashton is most keen to help students in countries in the Asian region (p. 9). He recog- nises that many of today’s students have little op- portunity to visit multiple forests or to spend long periods in any one forest, where their own curiosi- ty might directly reveal intriguing questions. As a remedy, Ashton takes us on an engaging and col- orful tour of the hundreds of Asian forests he has visited (see Fig. 1 in the book), while sharing his observations, comparisons, interpretations and theories. The inclusion of a great many color pho- tos contributes to the strong sense a reader has of ‘being there,’ listening to Peter talk while sun- flecked leaves nod in a light breeze, and bright birds call overhead. To further stimulate students, Ashton marks certain questions and statements in a special font, to indicate topics he considers to be particularly fertile and important for further study. I actually wish he had marked more sentences than he did, though anyone paying attention will find hundreds more questions on their own. Ash- ton’s writing style, generally clear and well-paced, but also full of flourish and speculation, contrib- utes to the vibrancy of the reader’s own internal commentary and critique. A major barrier to Ashton’s desire that this book be a resource for students is its very high cost (GBP 110; USD 180). He does state that the book is also published online (p. 11), “so that stu- dents worldwide can readily access it at affordable cost,” but at the time of this review the publisher had not yet made this digital version available. We can only hope that this matter is soon resolved. The nine chapters fall into three groups. The first (Chapters 1 to 5) sets the stage, dealing with climatic and geological influences on forests in the Asian tropical region (Chapter 1), with forest structure and its dependence on water and light availability (Chapter 2), and gives a comprehen- sive overview of forest types (Chapters 3 and 4). A unique advantage of this book over other such treatments (Tim Whitmore’s 1984 classic is the obvious comparison) is its coverage of South Asian forests, the similarity in species composition of which make them naturally suited for inclusion. The importance of “mobile links” (animals and fungi) is covered in Chapter 5, which also includes an invaluable review of staggered flowering in dipterocarps. This first group of chapters is the frontiers of biogeography 8.4, 2016 — © 2016 the authors; journal compilation © 2016 The International Biogeography Society

A new biogeographical classic

book reviews frontiers of biogeography 8.3, e32702, 2016 The mammals of Luzon island The Mammals of Luzon Island: Biogeography and Natural History of a Philippine Fauna by Law- rence R. Heaney, Danilo S. Balete and Eric A. Rickart, 2016, John Hopkins University Press, 304 pp. $75.00 (Hardback) ISBN: 978-1-4214-1837-7; https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu With the publication of this book, the mammals of Luzon Island deserve to take their place among the classic case studies in the biogeographical canon. The depth of information presented is im- pressive, condensing the contents of numerous papers, alongside natural history observations accumulated over the course of decades of gruel- ling and dedicated fieldwork. As an exemplar of how to construct a cohesive, integrated, bio- geographical research program I cannot think of its equal. In my own undergraduate lectures I have spent many years teaching students about New Zealand and Madagascar; this time they will learn about Luzon instead. Luzon has long been recognised as an ex- ceptional region. I began with an ignorance shared by Wallace, who believed the Philippines to con- tain few endemic mammals. This casual assump- tion was overturned by Whitehead, who reached the summit of the appositely-named Mount Data on a collection trip in 1895, and stumbled upon a rich mammal assemblage. He discovered that their species richness increases with altitude, a pattern replicated elsewhere on the archipelago. That the giant cloud rats had remained undiscov- ered by Western science was at least in part be- cause no-one had imagined that such creatures might dwell in the mountains. In total the island contains 47 native species of murid rodent, 96% of which are endemic. Even among tropical mountain regions, can there be another region with as many endemic mammals in such a small area, and with as many centres of endemism? The key to the generation and mainte- nance of such richness has been the isolated mountain chains, which are themselves highly variable in their edaphics. Hence the discovery that 79% of the species are locally endemic to re- stricted areas. Luzon originated 26–30 million years ago (Mya) as a merging of small islands, with its cur- rent form developing in the last million years. De- spite being separated by only 15 km from greater Mindanao, sea levels at the last glacial maximum have maintained a striking faunal barrier across the San Bernardino Strait. Luzon’s formation in- cluded both volcanism and continental uplift, gen- erating an ever-increasing degree of topographic complexity as the island grew in size. The wet and foggy conditions in the high mountains preserve unique communities, at altitudes which receive occasional frost, with climatic barriers revealed daily by patterns of cloud cover. The endemic small mammals form two dis- tinct groups. One set arises from two ancient ra- diations, whose species are diverse and special- ised. Cloud rats arrived 14 Mya and now comprise 12 species on Luzon (with six elsewhere on the archipelago). Earthworm mice were present from 7 Mya and now make up at least 36 species, in addition to 16 on neighbouring islands. These reach remarkable degrees of alpha richness, with up to 6 cloud rat and 7 earthworm mice living in the same habitat patches, all at medium to high elevations in mature montane and mossy forest. More recent endemics (less than 4 Mya) are typi- cally habitat generalists and related to Greater Mindanao species with limited differentiation. Based on painstaking accumulation of evi- dence, a picture emerges of how the assemblage of mammals was formed. Among small mammals, local speciation accounts for seven times as many species as colonisation. This clearly contravenes traditional island biogeographical theory, though here MacArthur and Wilson were prescient; Lu- zon’s mammals are recognised in their original text as a potential exception to the general model (1967:173–175). Unsurprisingly the converse is true of bats, with colonisation overwhelmingly exceeding speciation in generating the assem- blage, although there may be cryptic endemism. The island does not, however, present a clear fit frontiers of biogeography, ISSN 1948-6596 — © 2016 the authors; journal compilation © 2016 The International Biogeography Society

Noted with interest

book reviews frontiers of biogeography 8.3, e32703, 2016 books noted with interest Quantitative Ecology and Evolutionary Biology: Integrating Models With Data Otso Ovaskainen, Henrik Johan de Knegt & Maria del Mar Delgado, 2016, Oxford Univer- sity Press, 304 pp. £75.00 (Hardback) / £34.99 (Paperback) ISBN: 9780198714866 / 9780198714873; http://global.oup.com How does environmental heterogeneity interact with biological processes? The sophistication of modern statistical and mechanistic models in spa- tial ecology makes this a daunting field, and an entry-level text is long overdue. Applied chapters consider frameworks for analysing movement, communities, population genetics and evolution- ary dynamics. Despite its breadth, a strength of the book is the way modelling frameworks are linked together, leading the reader gradually into more sophisticated questions and analyses. This will be greatly appreciated by graduate students, either biologists looking to acquire new tools, or mathematicians who wish to see how their exper- tise can be applied to ecological questions. Trophic Ecology: Bottom-Up and Top-Down Interactions Across Aquatic and Terrestrial Systems Torrance C. Hanley & Kimberley J. La Pierre (editors), 2015, Cambridge University Press, 426 pp. £59.99 (Hardback) / £34.99 (Paperback) ISBN: 9781107077324 / 9781107434325; http://www.cambridge.org Spatial Point Patterns: Methodology and Ap- plications with R Adrian Baddeley, Ege Rubak & Rolf Turner, 2016, Chapman & Hall / CRC, 810 pp. £63.99 (Hardback) ISBN 978-1-4822-1020-0; https://www.crcpress.com Several books on analysing point pattern proc- esses have been published in recent years; this is by far the largest, at least in part due to the inclu- sion of example scripts and output. Its central tool is the spatstat package in R. Chapters cover spatial point pattern statistics from first principles through to some of the more sophisticated tech- niques. Its audience is scientists looking to employ and interpret these tools, and while technical sec- tions are included, they expand on the applied material rather than being core. This will prove a valuable reference and its guidance will improve standards in the field. Markus Eichhorn University of Nottingham, UK Submitted: 30 September 2016 Accepted: 1 October 2016 Edited by Michael N Dawson It is not sufficient to acknowledge that both bot- tom-up (e.g. resource availability) and top-down forces (e.g. predation) independently influence natural systems at all trophic levels; there are also interactions between them, with the outcomes differing among systems, taxa and scales. The edi- tors each come from terrestrial and aquatic per- spectives in their own research. Here they have brought together an impressive array of contribu- tors to present a series of case studies and re- views, allowing for commonalities and differences to be noted and elaborated upon. It thereby pre- sents the state of the field and will inspire many future comparative studies. frontiers of biogeography, ISSN 1948-6596 — © 2016 the authors; journal compilation © 2016 The International Biogeography Society

A new framework for teaching ecology

book reviews frontiers of biogeography 8.3, e31939, 2016 A new framework for teaching ecology Ecology in Action by Fred D. Singer (author), 2016, Cambridge University Press, 675 pp. £44.99 (Hardback) ISBN 9781107115378; http://www.cambridge.org/ecologyinaction Ecology in Action by Fred Singer is the first ecology textbook to be written with explicit consideration of the growing use of open-source statistical soft- ware in scientific research, and has the potential to change how we teach entry-level ecology. The author has made a concerted effort to inform stu- dents what ‘doing ecology’ actually requires, from the perspective of real ecologists. The result is an engaging volume with an underlying theme that is as much one of fostering scientific curiosity as it is of bestowing information. The book is aimed at undergraduate students with introductory biology and chemistry knowledge. However, I would add that (as in any ecology course) students would also benefit from at least a basic knowledge of calculus to help them understand the ubiquitous models of population growth and competition that are built using differential equations. The material moves through twenty-four chapters, comprising five main parts that are or- ganised by levels of ecological hierarchy: physical– chemical, organismal, population, community and ecosystem. Each chapter ends with the standard offerings of further readings and end-of-chapter review questions. The lists of additional readings contain a good mix of classical and cutting-edge research, a welcome divergence from the habit of asking students to slog through primary literature that has been gathering dust since before they were born. Readings are also accompanied by suc- cinct descriptions, including warnings of particu- larly dense articles that should be welcomed by those students who are inclined to access the ex- tra material. The final chapters in each of Parts II–V focus on the work of particular scientist, all of whom are still active in ecology at the writing of this review, and whose research epitomises the major theme of the particular book section. A distinctly positive note is the gender representation achieved among the individuals selected for discussion, though the absence of any ecologist of colour is unfortunate. The inclusion of scientists’ biographical informa- tion and personal anecdotes along with summaries of their research, themselves written in a highly accessible, narrative style, simply makes this par- ticular textbook more interesting than others. The accessibility of the palette used for fig- ures, captions and key words may be an issue for some users (Jenny & Kelson 2007). I applied a col- ourblindness filter (Color Oracle v 1.1.4) to the digital chapters available on the publisher’s web- site and found that the shade of green used for figure captions and in-text references to figures was indistinguishable from the orange used for in- text keywords. The two-category bar plots and some of the line plots are also shaded in red and green, which is perhaps the least-accessible com- bination of colours when patterns are not used in concert to differentiate among factors. In addi- tion, even the simplest bar plots are shaded using a gradient for no apparent reason. A highlight of this volume is the included R companion, a digital manual written by by Edd Hammill, which provides lessons in using R for data analysis, closely following the material in the main text. Better manuals on introductory R (e.g. Beckerman & Petchey 2012) as well as more ad- vanced volumes on R-based statistics (e.g. Field et al. 2012) are already available. However, integra- tion of an R manual into basic coursework is well overdue in ecology. While going through it, I found myself excitedly re-imagining the material for a semester’s-worth of quantitative ecology labs. The R Companion is not quite sure whether it’s an R manual or a statistics manual. If the for- mer, it is missing key elements that differentiate R from other statistics programmes and that would allow students to achieve true competence as us- ers. If the latter, its usefulness in a classroom set- ting may depend on whether a particular degree programme requires introductory statistics as a prerequisite to ecology, because the statistical tests included should have been covered in an- other course. frontiers of biogeography, ISSN 1948-6596 — © 2016 the authors; journal compilation © 2016 The International Biogeography Society

The 2017 IBS MacArthur & Wilson Award

Announcements frontiers of biogeography 8.2, e31470, 2016 The 2017 MacArthur and Wilson Award The International Biogeography Society Board is pleased to announce that the MacArthur and Wilson Award will be presented to Dr. Jessica Blois at the society’s 8 th biennial meeting in Tucson, Arizona, USA (January 9-13, 2017). This award – named in honor of Robert H. MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson - is spon- sored by Frontiers of Biogeography and was created to recognize an outstanding, compara- tively early career scientist that has made nota- ble, innovative contributions to the discipline of biogeography. Dr. Blois is one of the top researchers in the new generation of scientists working at the intersection of biogeography and paleoecology. Her research integrates neo-and paleo- ecological approaches to understand the abiot- ic and biotic processes that control the pat- terns of species distributions and diversity through space and time. Dr. Blois blends deep expertise in community ecology and paleoecol- ogy with creative research design, field and laboratory work, and rigorous statistical analy- sis and modeling to advance our understanding of species and ecosystem responses to large and rapid environmental changes. In a series of groundbreaking papers, Dr. Blois’ innovative work has demonstrated key mechanisms and outcomes of climate change, species interac- tions, and biodiversity dynamics over millennia. Her use of state-of-the-art statistical tools and datasets has provided the community with new paths forward for tackling challenging diverse problems in an era of rapid global change. The IBS Board notes with thanks, the work of the MacArthur and Wilson Award Com- mittee: Carl Beierkuhnlein, David Currie, Jona- than Price, Jack Williams and Vicki Funk (chair). International Biogeography Society Board frontiers of biogeography, ISSN 1948-6596 — © 2016 the authors; journal compilation © 2016 The International Biogeography Society

The 2017 IBS Alfred Russel Wallace Award

Announcements frontiers of biogeography 8.2, e31469, 2016 The 2017 Alfred Russel Wallace Award The IBS Board is pleased to announce that Mar- garet Bryan Davis will be the next to join the distinguished list of recipients of the Alfred Russel Wallace Award. The Wallace Award will be given at the upcoming IBS biennial meeting in Tucson, Arizona, USA (January 9-13, 2017), and was established by the IBS in 2004 to rec- ognize a lifetime of outstanding contributions by an eminent scholar in any subdiscipline of biogeography. Professor Emeritus Margaret Bryan Davis of the University of Minnesota has a long and distinguished career of outstanding contribu- tions to biogeography, and deserves credit for placing paleoecology squarely in the main- stream of biogeography and ecology. Her pa- pers combine magisterial reviews and thought- ful syntheses with a long series of carefully de- signed and elegant empirical studies aimed at addressing specific, focused questions. Professor Davis’ work established many of the current tenets of Quaternary biogeogra- phy: that species shift ranges in response to climate change, these changes are individualis- tic, and that as a consequence communities are transient. Other ideas, such as the role of path- ogens in forest history and the timescale of migrational lags, remain on-going topics of re- search and productive debate. Her ideas opened up new fields of fertile investigation that continue today, including postglacial pat- terns and rates of plant migration, the transi- ence of ecological communities, stand-scale forest history, the mid-Holocene hemlock de- cline in eastern North America, and how pollen data record vegetation. A mark of a truly great scientist is the ability to reconsider, and revise or even reject, strongly held views. Margaret Davis welcomed critiques, and demonstrated that conceptual breakthroughs were not always as effective as hoped. She stood her ground and asked diffi- cult questions, but when others provided com- pelling evidence, she yielded. Professor Davis was rigorous, critical, and set high standards for the field, always with a focus towards doing the best science and getting closer to the truth. She inspired countless young scientists by her professional example, as well as by the quality of her work and thinking. Professor Davis had – and continues to have – few equals in combining rigorous, ana- lytical approaches with broad, discipline- spanning syntheses. The IBS Board notes with thanks, the work of the Wallace Award Committee: Ingolf Kuhn, Mark Lomolino, Jonathan Losos, Susanne Renner, Kathy Willis, and Dov Sax (chair). International Biogeography Society Board frontiers of biogeography, ISSN 1948-6596 — © 2016 the authors; journal compilation © 2016 The International Biogeography Society

IPBES is in the books: Pollination and scenario assessments are <i> the first </i> two steps to guiding policy makers in the global biodiversity crisis

editorial frontiers of biogeography 8.1, e30404, 2016 IPBES is in the books: Pollination and scenario assessments are the first two steps to guiding policy makers in the global biodi- versity crisis During their 4th plenary session in Kuala Lumpur, the 124 member states of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Eco- system Services (IPBES) adopted their first assess- ment on the global state of pollination, pollinators and food production (IPBES 2016a) and a second one on scenarios and models (IPBES 2016b). With these first assessments, meant to provide an ‘early win’ for the work program 2014–2018 (Opgenoorth and Faith 2013), IPBES establishes itself as a vital source of information for policy makers to counter the global biodiversity crisis just like IPCC has done regarding global climate change. Bob Watson, the new IPBES chair and for- mer chair of the IPCC, stated (somewhat tongue- in-cheek) that the pollination assessment is “clearly better than anything the IPCC has ever produced.” Enthusiasm is more than justified re- garding the impressive amount of work the two teams of experts have put into the assessments over the last two years. It is now timely to have a closer look at what they set out to do and how it was carried out as well as to check how the 124 governments have dealt with the summaries for policy makers that were discussed in plenary. The pollination and food production assess- ment The pollination assessment—as will be the rule for IPBES assessments in general—is made up of a technical report and the summary for policy mak- ers (SPM). As IPBES is a science-policy interface controlled by member states, the SPM is a docu- ment that needs to be adopted line by line by gov- ernment representatives. This requires consensus and government delegations can hold up the pro- cess indefinitely if they don’t agree with any as- pect of the text. Requests for changes to the text could well be politically motivated; however, the co-chairs of the report as well as the coordinating lead authors of the respective chapters are pre- sent during this procedure to make sure that the content of the technical report is not distorted in the SPM. The technical report on the other hand stands as presented to the governments by the experts. Here, only the executive summaries of each chapter get approved individually by govern- ments’ representatives. The technical report The technical report in its draft version includes some 830 pages of text divided into 6 chapters covering (i) background, (ii) drivers of change, (iii) status and trends, (iv) economic valuation, (v) bi- ocultural diversity and socio-cultural values, and (vi) response to risks and opportunities associated [sic], all in relation to pollinators and pollination. The aim of the assessment, as originally set out in the scoping document, was to “assess animal pol- lination as a regulating ecosystem service under- pinning food production in the context of its con- tribution to nature’s gift to people and supporting a good quality of life”. Its scope is global with the exception of Antarctica where no pollinators are known. As in all IPBES products, it is informed by natural, social and economic sciences as well as “knowledge of indigenous and local community stakeholders and practitioners”. Especially this latter aspect is considered to be one of the central innovations of the IPBES process. This first report clearly documents that IPBES takes this innovative challenge serious. Numerous examples from indig- enous and local knowledge (ILK) holders are pre- sented in the assessment. At the same time it also documents that there is still some distance to cov- er until ILK will leave example boxes and become a more equal part of the assessment. Nevertheless, in Kuala Lumpur it was evident, that all bodies of IPBES will work hard to develop this integration further. A second overarching perspective of IPBES is that this body and its assessments intend to be policy relevant but not policy prescriptive. To that end, each chapter presents factual statements frontiers of biogeography, ISSN 1948-6596 — © 2016 the authors; journal compilation © 2016 The International Biogeography Society

Invasive species and global climate change

book reviews ISSN 1948-6596 Invasive species and global climate change Invasive Species and Global Climate Change. Lewis H. Ziska and Jeffrey S. Dukes (editors), 2014, CABI, 368 pp. £95 (Hardback) ISBN 9781780641645; http://www.cabi.org/ Ziska and Dukes have brought together an inter- esting range of chapters around an important topic for managing ecosystems in the 21 st cen- tury. The book uses the term 'invasive species' to describe those that have “crossed a major bio- geographic barrier (e.g. an ocean), usually with the assistance of humans, and whose introduc- tion has, or will, result in significant negative eco- nomic or environmental impacts”. The editors freely acknowledge there are alternative defini- tions and related concepts and it would perhaps have been useful to set these out more clearly in the opening chapter. Nevertheless, the book oc- cupies a clear niche and makes a useful contribu- tion. The scope is broad, including pathogenic microorganisms, vertebrates, invertebrates and invasive plant species. The geographical scope ranges from Antarctica to the tropics and marine, terrestrial and freshwater systems are all cov- ered. Agricultural and natural systems are in- cluded. Climate change includes the effects of rising CO 2 levels as well as changes in meteoro- logical variables. There is a strong American influ- ence, with nearly half of the contributors from the USA, but there is a wide range of examples from other countries. For me the strength of the book is the good use of case studies and examples to complement review material. Multi-author books are a good format for case studies – journals are often not interested in them, but they are a very valuable part of the evidence base for developing new pol- icy and management approaches. Case studies bring a topic to life and ground science in practi- cal experience. The latter sections of the book address management. The application of science to real world problems is strong, whilst at the same time maintaining a scientific approach, with extensive references. A book of this sort is useful not simply in its own right but as a gateway to the more specialist journal literature and this one fulfils that expectation. An important element of any management response is the availability of reliable information and good data for detecting and anticipating change and methodology for anticipating future impacts; five chapters cover these areas. These include specific examples of resources and more generic reviews of approaches, including distribu- tion- and population-based approaches to model- ling (respectively, the chapters by Bradley and Gutierrez and by Ponti). The final three chapters (by Ziska, Westbrooks et al., and Barnes et al.) deal explicitly with the development of manage- ment strategies. Economics feature in a number of chapters in the book, mostly by way of provid- ing context; the concluding chapter by Barnes et al. explicitly considers potential opportunities to exploit invasive species as an economic resource. The chapters vary in style and content. The climate change content is thin in some of them, which is disappointing, but others, such as Web- ber et al.’s account of invasive plants in Australia, do a really good job of integrating climate change and biological invasions. Most chapters identify evidence gaps and uncertainties and some set out lists of research needs. This is an area where there remain significant challenges and in some cases it is not possible to do much more than to acknowledge that climate change complicates and exacerbates the impacts of invasive species. In others there is already a good understanding of the mechanisms involved and it is possible to identify specific needs for research and develop- ment. This is a book that is likely to be a useful reference for a variety of readers and would make a good purchase for institutional libraries. It will be valuable for researchers in the field and I could see it supplying examples for lectures and student essays up to Masters level. It is also a re- source for policy makers, land managers and sci- entific advisors working at a strategic level to tackle the problems presented by invasive non- frontiers of biogeography 7.3, 2015 — © 2015 the authors; journal compilation © 2015 The International Biogeography Society

Ecotones – where biomes meet

news and update ISSN 1948-6596 commentary Ecotones – where biomes meet The classification of biomes (or vegetation types) represents one of the most basic summaries of ecological units and provides part of the basis of biogeography. The first systematic continen- tal biome map was a map of Africa produced by Schantz in 1923 (Kuchler 1960). Since then, bi- ome mapping has continually developed to in- form biodiversity sciences. Initially such devel- opments were mainly in the form of expert mapping, where vegetation scientists with good knowledge of the area being mapped, and often drawing on actual plant community data, drew the boundaries of biomes (Kent 2012). More recently, ever more reliance has been put on remote-sensing data, where algo- rithms are used to interpret satellite imagery to classify biome distributions (and other land use types; Xie et al. 2008). With the concomitant development of other large-scale spatial datasets, such as of climate and soil, there has been an increased interest in the drivers of biome distribution, or elements of vegetation such as woody cover, at macroecological scales (e.g., Stephenson 1990, Greve et al. 2011, Campo-Bescos et al. 2013). Understanding what drives biome distribution is especially important in the face of global change, in response to which the distribution of biomes may be expected to shift. It has been suggested that if such shifts are to take place, the transition zones between vegetation types, i.e. the ecotones, would be most suitable for monitoring such changes (e.g., Berner et al. 2013; though see Kupfer and Cairns 1996). Eco- tones are often also areas of high richness as they may harbour species from different bi- omes (e.g., van Rensburg et al. 2009), and may be important areas of gene flow and hybridiza- tion (Kark and van Rensburg 2006). Against this background of the im- portance of ecotones, and a lack of attention historically afforded them (Kark and van Rens- burg 2006), it is exciting that the South African Journal of Botany will shortly be releasing a special issue dealing with “biome boundaries” in the South African context (Potts et al. 2015a). South Africa harbours a particularly high diversity of biomes (Mucina and Ruther- ford 2006), with some regions of high biome turnover across relatively small geographic dis- tances (Fig. 1). This, together with the rich his- tory for biome research in the country (Potts et al. 2015a), makes the region a natural labora- tory to understand ecotones and their drivers. The special issue presents work conduct- ed at a range of spatial scales (Potts et al. 2015a), ranging from transplant experiments across biome boundaries (Esler et al. 2015) to works conducted across all biomes in the coun- try. One of the country-scale studies examines the use and limitations of dynamic vegetation models in understanding the shifts of biome boundaries in response to climate change (Moncrieff et al. 2015), while another examines the extent to which ecotones can be also used to differentiate between alien plant composi- tion (Rouget et al. 2015). Other studies look at the role of soils in determining biome distribution (reviewed in Potts et al. 2015a). One of these used soil car- bon isotope analyses to ask whether soil type might drive biome boundaries in a grassland- forest mosaic (Gray and Bond 2015). By exam- ining the depth profile of carbon isotopes they concluded the opposite: that biome affects soil carbon. In the fire-prone grasslands, fires de- plete nutrients, while nutrient build-up hap- pens in forests, which are protected from fires. In this system, disturbances, rather than the abiotic environment, drive the position of eco- tones. A number of papers in the special issue look at changes in vegetation structure and boundaries through time using repeat aerial and ground-based photography (reviewed in Potts et al. 2015a). These studies, which could illustrate how shifts in biome boundaries occur (e.g., Masubelele et al. 2015), illustrate the im- frontiers of biogeography 7.3, 2015 — © 2015 the authors; journal compilation © 2015 The International Biogeography Society

Placing phylogenetic diversity back on the evolutionary track

news and update ISSN 1948-6596 commentary Placing phylogenetic diversity back on the evolutionary track Conceptual frameworks relying on properties that are hard to measure are often challenging. A common solution is the use of proxies or sur- rogates for those properties. When molecular phylogenies became easily available and the conceptual framework by Webb et al. (2002) was published, many ecologists started to use phylogenies as proxy for ecological relationships. The study proposed straightforward hypotheses to infer community assembly processes by using phylogenetic information when trait information is not available, and rapidly became a seminal pa- per. The “phylogeny as a proxy to ecology” ap- proach assumes that closely related species should share more similar features (e.g., ecologi- cal traits, habitats, environmental tolerances) than distantly related species, a statement that can be traced back to Charles Darwin (Webb et al. 2002). Indeed, the number of studies using this approach has quickly increased in recent years (Cianciaruso 2011), even in macroecological and biogeograph- ical journals. Cianciaruso (2011) asked how macro- ecology and biogeography could benefit from phy- logenetic diversity and how we could advance the theory by using novel approaches. An article re- cently published by Gerhold et al. (2015) presents an important contribution to answer these ques- tions. Gerhold et al. (2015) is a must-read paper for anyone thinking of using the “phylogeny as a proxy to ecology” approach because it highlights that phylogenies are not good proxies to ecology, and gives ideas on how ecologists and biogeogra- phers can further connect community-level data to macroevolution. The authors challenge core assumptions that have been increasingly used in studies following the approach proposed by Webb et al. (2002). One of these assumptions is that phylogenetic clustering may be an outcome of trait clustering due to the action of environmental filters or that phylogenetic structure is mainly due to local and present-day processes. Since Webb and colleagues’ paper, several ecologists have used some of their assumptions without criticism (Gerhold et al. 2015). For instance, macroecologi- cal studies have used phylogeny as a proxy (e.g., Cardillo 2011), which should be avoided consider- ing the points made by Gerhold et al. (2015). It is important to note that other studies (e.g., May- field and Levine 2010) have raised some of the criticisms used by Gerhold et al. (2015), but the particular advantage of this new review is that it synthesizes the different criticisms to the “phylogeny as a proxy to ecology” approach. But what does Gerhold et al. (2015) have to do with biogeography? Community ecologists and biogeographers have argued that community ecol- ogy and biogeography should be further integrat- ed (Cavender-Bares et al. 2009, Cianciaruso 2011). Indeed, an attempt towards such an integration was one of the original aims of Webb et al. (2002; see their Figure 1), but it has been little explored over the years. Community ecology can benefit from biogeographic and phylogenetic approaches by putting history and evolution into the explana- tion for current patterns of biodiversity (e.g., com- munity structure) as highlighted by Gerhold et al. (2015). Biogeography in turn can benefit from community ecology elucidating how local process- es can feedback into regional processes, and help- ing explain how ecological processes shape the tree of life (i.e., phylogeny) and the current distri- bution of life on Earth (i.e., macroecological patterns) across evolutionary time via adaptation and other eco-evolutionary mechanisms. Gerhold et al. (2015) argue that ecologists would improve their researches by considering phylogeny not as a mere proxy for ecology but rather by investigating how phylogenetic pat- terns can give insight into processes that drive species coexistence or are its outcome. Ger- hold and colleagues made several points about the perils of using phylogeny as a proxy. We agree with their points. If species traits are al- ready a proxy for functionality or species’ interac- tions (with other species or the environment), would it be safe to use a proxy of a proxy? We believe that it would not. We argue that ecologists frontiers of biogeography 7.3, 2015 — © 2015 the authors; journal compilation © 2015 The International Biogeography Society