Biogeography: Is Everything Everywhere?

摘要

How would the world look if marsupials, instead of being confined to the sanctuary and prison of Australia, had been forced to confront every other carnivore, tree-climber, burrower, and grazer on the planet? Our ideas about ecology, evolution, and history would be quite different had they been derived from studying animals that had crossed oceans, mountains, or deserts to seek out suitable environments. Polar bears in the Antarctic? Penguins in Alaska? Chimpanzees in Amazonia? Kangaroos on the Serengeti?