Vicariance, Dispersal, and Plate Tectonics

Abstract

Probably the greatest debate in the history of biogeography concerns the relative extent to which dispersal, as opposed to vicariance, can best explain the evolution and distribution of organisms. This is, in fact, a debate that even occupied many natural historians who did not believe in evolution. The different views of such scientists as Buffon, Linnaeus, de Candolle père, Hooker, Wallace, and Darwin were discussed in Chapter 4. What is relevant here, however, is how, in the modern scientific framework of paleobiogeography, we should view both vicariance and dispersal.