ABSTRACT
Time is different from the three other dimensions of the universe in that it moves in one direction only. Development, in biogeography, covers the changes occurring in a single individual organism during its lifetime. The second major way in which time-scales influence biogeography is through migration of organisms. Most significant of all is perhaps the way in which time works through environmental change to influence biogeography. Environmental change comes in many forms: continental drift and plate tectonics, climatic change, geomorphological change, edaphic. The climax theory is not necessarily wrong: it is simply irrelevant to many actual situations and particular time-scales and biogeographers would do well to abandon it completely. It will be clear from the foregoing that the time factor is important in biogeography but is effective in different ways depending on the time scale which is under consideration. The 10,000 to 100,000 years time scales are particularly associated with Quaternary climatic change, with all its important biogeographical effects.
