Modern biogeography is by nature a multidisciplinary branch of science, but it was part of Theology for centuries, when authors such as Augustine and Kircher applied reproductive biology models to explain geographic dispersal "after the Universal Deluge". Today, biogeographers test hypotheses about why organisms inhabit some areas of the planet, but not others (ecological biogeography) and about how they colonized --if at all-- those areas (historical biogeography).
In the last decades, a series of important books have dealt with specific regions, or have summarized the history and methods of historical biogeography.
The historical biogeography section of this website deals mainly with modern advances in biogeography, emphasizing the state of the debate among schools of thought that include dispersalists, panbiogeographers and vicariists.
The ecological biogeography section deals mainly with the biogeography of velvet worms or onychophorans, a group of “living fossils” ideally suited for biogeographical research.
Julian Monge - Nájera / State Distance Education University (UNED), Costa Rica /
