Remote island archipelagos offer superb opportunities to study the evolution of community
assembly because of their relatively young and simple communities where speciation …

The general dynamic model of oceanic island biogeography (GDM) has added a new
dimension to theoretical island biogeography in recognizing that geological processes are …

Caves and other subterranean habitats fulfill the requirements of experimental model
systems to address general questions in ecology and evolution. Yet, the harsh working …

Aim To identify the biogeographical factors underlying spider species richness in the
Macaronesian region and assess the importance of species extinctions in shaping the …

Background The major islands of the Western Mediterranean--Corsica, Sardinia, and the
Balearic Islands--are continental terrenes that drifted towards their present day location …

The field of systematics involves at least three major elements: biodiversity exploration
(inventory); taxonomic discovery and description (taxonomy); and the estimation of …

Understanding the age, origins and extinction of oceanic island biota has captivated the
interest of evolutionary biologists since Darwin and Wallace. Because oceanic islands are …

Ecological specialization is an important mechanism enhancing species coexistence within
a given community. Yet, unravelling the effect of multiple selective evolutionary and …

Natural selection plays a key role in deterministic evolution, as clearly illustrated by the
multiple cases of repeated evolution of ecomorphological characters observed in adaptive …

Studies conducted on volcanic islands have greatly contributed to our current understanding
of how organisms diversify. The Canary Islands archipelago, located northwest of the coast …