Biogeography:

Biogeography is the study at all possible scales of analysis of the distribution of life across space, and how, through time, it has changed, within which a major concern has always been the distribution and dynamics of diversity, frequently codified in terms simply of numbers of species, or proportions of endemic species. The discipline has deep scientific roots, with some of the major themes already established as areas of enquiry by the early 1800s (Brown & Lomolino, 1998; Lomolino et al., 2004).

Biodiversity Conservation: Biodiversity conservation refers to the protection, upliftment, and management of biodiversity in order to derive sustainable benefits for present and future generations.

Conservation Biogeography: he application of biogeographical principles, theories, and analyses, being those concerned with the distributional dynamics of taxa individually and collectively, to problems concerning the conservation of biodiversity’.

Conservation biogeography is a relatively new academic endeavor that brings conservation and applied concerns to the fore by combining the traditions of biogeography with the concerns of conservation biology. Biogeography is a well-established scientific discipline that examines the spatial organization of biological diversity.

Typically this is done by

(1) observation of ecological and other biophysical factors that affect the distributions of species and of biotic communities or ecosystems; or

(2) examination of historical happenings and evolutionary mechanisms that changed those species and their distributions through climate change, plate tectonics, species interactions, or other events or processes.

Often, a biogeographer uses biological data to elucidate the evolutionary lineages of a group of organisms and then queries the implications of those lineages in order to understand the histories of the relevant parts of the Earth’s surface. Biogeographers also pose questions about the distributions of assemblages of species, including the types of vegetation and the ecosystem processes that structure the land cover of the Earth. Conservation biogeography uses both these paradigms to examine the implications of past and present distributions in order to plan for the protection of biodiversity under current and possible future conditions. It is inspired by the agenda and research achievements of conservation biology, but it may draw upon even wider academic frameworks given the interdisciplinary nature of biogeography.

Conservation biogeography is well poised to make a significant contribution to the process of providing policy makers with objectively formulated scenarios and options for the effective management of biodiversity. The editorial, and the papers in the special issue, deliberate on many of the exciting developments in play in the field, and the many complex challenges that lie ahead. Conservation biogeography is a relatively new academic endeavor that brings conservation and applied concerns to the fore by combining the traditions of biogeography with the concerns of conservation biology.