Читать книгу Biogeography - Группа авторов - Страница 19

It is impossible to practice biogeography without an area classification, whether those areas are simply geopolitical, geographical or based on endemism or taxonomic distribution. The plant and animal geographies of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries have shown us that no matter how you divide up the world, you have to call your areas something. How plant and animal biogeographers define their areas also depends on the background of the authors. Humboldt, a naturalist, wished to use plant form and vegetation; de Candolle, a taxonomist (in fact, he coined the term taxonomy), used the distributions of species in what was later described as topographical plant geography; Schouw, following in the Humboldtian tradition, used vegetation; Alphonse de Candolle, a systematist, preferred to use endemism; Mayr, an evolutionary biologist, wanted to use populations or elements. Regardless, they were all doing the same thing, area classification, in order to express their theories of the world using a variety of different methods. Yet, area classification seemingly had its detractors, namely those who thought it was static or artificial. These objections were mostly about how areas are defined, rather than area classification per se. Area classification will always be practiced as long as there is a study of the distribution of organisms.