ABSTRACT
Biogeographers address a misleadingly simple question: why do organisms live where they do? Why is the speckled rangeland grasshopper confined to short -grass prairie and forest or brushland clearings containing small patches of bare ground? Why does the ring ouzel l ive in Norway, Sweden, the British Isles, and mountainous parts of central Europe, Turkey, and south-west Asia, but not in the intervening regions? Why do tapirs live only in South America and South-east Asia? Why do the nestor parrots-the kea and the kaka-live only in New Zealand? Why do pouched mammals (marsupials) live in Australia and the Americas , but not in Europe, Asia , Africa, or Antarctica? Why do different regions carry distinct assemblages of animals and plants?
