The reticulating phylogeny of island biogeography theory

Biogeographers study all patterns in the geographic variation of life, from the spatial variation in genetic and physiological characteristics of cells and individuals, to the diversity and dynamics of biological communities among continental biotas or across oceanic archipelagoes. The field of island biogeography, in particular, has provided some genuinely transformative insights for the biological sciences, especially ecology and evolutionary biology. Our purpose here is to review the historical development of island biogeography theory during the 20th century by identifying the common threads that run through four sets of contributions made during this period, including those by Eugene Gordon Munroe (1948, 1953), Edward O. Wilson (1959, 1961), Frank W. Preston (1962a,b), and the seminal collaborations between Wilson and Robert H. MacArthur (1963, 1967), which revolutionized the field and served as its paradigm for nearly four decades. This epistemological account not only reviews the intriguing history of island theory, but it also includes fundamental lessons for advancing science through transformative integrations. Indeed, as is likely the case with many disciplines, island theory advanced not as a simple accumulation of facts and an orderly succession of theories and paradigms, but rather in fits and starts through a reticulating phylogeny of ideas and alternating periods of specialization and reintegration. We conclude this review with a summary of the salient features of this scientific revolution in the contest of Kuhn's structure, which strongly influenced theoretical advances during this period, and we then describe some of the fundamental assumptions and tenets of an emerging reintegration of island biogeography theory.