ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a personal view of four major trends in research which have an important bearing on the types of explanations used to answer questions about how and why particular mosaics emerge. First, the period since 1964 and the initiation of the International Biological Programme has seen a great deal of research effort devoted to an understanding of the functioning of world ecosystems. Second, in biogeographical work concerns the study of plant succession. Third, major impetus to biogeographical studies has come from plant and animal ecologists concerned with an understanding of the nature and causes of spatial variations of biotic communities on a more local scale. Fourth, biogeography in America received an enormous fillip from the revolutionary work of R. H. MacArthur and E. O. Wilson, who provided a theoretical basis for understanding how the biotic composition of different oceanic islands reflects a dynamic equilibrium between extinction and immigration processes.
