Experimental island biogeography

Abstract

Although it must surely seem that experimental biogeographers have succumbed to islomania — the powerful attraction of islands — they are not alone in doing so. An inkling of the general exuberance for islands can perhaps be glimpsed from the nautical charts of the last century, which designated latitude and longitude of about 200 more islands than are presently known to exist (Stommel, 1984). Many of these were undoubtedly optical illusions, wistfully imagined from ships, but in reality perhaps low cloud banks or icebergs. An unintentional mispositioning of real islands may have occurred at the slip of a pen. Others may have intentionally been given fraudulent identity to satisfy financiers. While additional islands may have subsided, leaving atolls as remembrances, others, such as Surtsey in the Atlantic, occasionally arose abruptly from the ocean floor (Fridriksson, 1975). Nowadays man’s activities provide a non-volcanic source of new islands created by dumping dredge sediments or capping dumpsites in nearshore areas.