Current oversights in marine biogeography
Steve Gaines, Ph.D.
University of California, Santa Barbara
Wednesday, November 29, 2000
3:00 p.m.—Pacific Forum
Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species on the planet.
Because of the enormous spatial scales involved, tests of biogeographic
hypotheses have proven difficult. We cannot do experiments (at least not
replicated ones), and we typically have limited data relevant to the
questions. As a result, we typically extrapolate from our understanding of
the processes setting local distributions to larger biogeographic scales.
These extrapolations are problematic if there are factors operating at
large scales that play little role at local scales.
In this talk, I will explore these issues with respect to several
important biogeographic issues: the causes of species range boundaries,
latitudinal patterns of species diversity, and the response of
biogeographic distributions to climatic shifts. One common thread to the
findings is that ocean currents and their effects on the dispersal of
young may play a far more important and complicated role than is commonly
assumed. In addition, the important role of current-driven dispersal may
generate important contrasts between terrestrial and marine biogeographic
Next: Sea otter research and conservation at the Monterey Bay Aquarium