The reinvention of Australasian biogeography : reform, revolt and rebellion / Malte C. Ebach.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Cover; Contents; Foreword; Prologue; Acknowledgements; Chapter 1 Studying the distribution of life on Earth; The search for natural biotic areas; Cladistics: the search for natural taxa and their relationships; Cladistic biogeography: the search for natural areas and their relationships; What is an area? Establishing the cladistic biogeographic method; How to do cladistic biogeography (or how to start reforming); Reform and the three phases of biogeography; Chapter 2 Biogeography comes to Australasia; Biological classification and biogeography: a condensed history.

The two area classifications: the triumph of Humboldt's plant geography; Australian biogeography: flora, fauna, elements and biomes; The need for testable hypotheses; Chapter 3 Carving up Australasia: the quest for natural biogeographic regions; Is New Zealand a zoological region?; Are Australia's regions artificial?; Reinvention thesis and bioregionalisation; Chapter 4 The spectre of cladism: cladistics in the Land of Oz; The cladistics war; Early Australasian practitioners and critics of numerical cladistics; Transformed cladistics in the Land of Oz; Cladistics in Australian palaeontology.

Chapter 5 A new biogeography: the panbiogeography revolt in New Zealand; Panbiogeography: Earth and life evolving together; The development of panbiogeography in New Zealand (1978-1989); Panbiogeography and its reformation; Chapter 6 Goodbye Gondwana: the drowning of Zealandia and the rise of neodispersalism; New Zealand: archipelago, island continent or oceanic island?; The New Zealand drowning hypothesis: towards an integrative biogeography; Integrative biogeography: an undisciplined discipline?; Chapter 7 All possible futures.

Entering the analytical phase: testing the link between evidence and hypothesis; Extending Ball's criteria: invasions, drowning and neodispersalism; Towards the analytical phase and biogeographic discovery; A future of Australasian biogeography ending the cycle of reinvention; Framing biogeographic problems using the taxonomy analogy; Glossary; Endnotes; References; Index.

The story of the evolution of biogeographical practice in Australasia.

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