Theory of explaining species diversity on islands that was first proposed in a Princeton Monograph co-authored by Robert MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson in 1967.
Prior to the publication of The Theory of IslandBiogeography by Robert MacArthur and E.O. Wilson in 1967 (which expanded their 1963 paper on the same topic) the field of biogeography was seen as a primarily historical one, and as such the field was seen as a purely descriptive one.
The application of islandbiogeographytheory to habitat fragments spurred the development of the fields of conservation biology and landscape ecology (at least among British and American academics; landscape ecology has a distinct genesis among European academics).
Biogeography is a synthetic science, related to geography, biology, geology, climatology, ecology and evolution.
The study of islandbiogeography is a field within biogeography that attempts to establish and explain the factors that affect the species diversity of a particular community.
In this context the island can be any area of habitat surrounded by areas unsuitable for the species on the island; not just true islands surrounded by ocean, but also mountains surrounded by deserts, lakes surrounded by dry land, forest fragments surrounded by human-altered landscapes.
The theory of islandbiogeography holds that the number of species found on an island (the equilibrium number) is determined by two factors, the effect of distance from the mainland and the effect of island size.
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