Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation and habitat area. Phytogeography is the branch of biogeography that studies the distribution of plants. Zoogeography is the branch that studies distribution of animals. Mycogeography is the branch that studies distribution of fungi, such as mushrooms.
Frontispiece to Alfred Russel Wallace's book The Geographical Distribution of Animals
Biologist Edward O. Wilson, coauthored The Theory of Island Biogeography, which helped in stimulating much research on this topic in the late 20th and 21st. centuries.
In ecology, a community is a group or association of populations of two or more different species occupying the same geographical area at the same time, also known as a biocoenosis, biotic community, biological community, ecological community, or life assemblage. The term community has a variety of uses. In its simplest form it refers to groups of organisms in a specific place or time, for example, "the fish community of Lake Ontario before industrialization".
A bear with a salmon. Interspecific interactions such as predation are a key aspect of community ecology.
a) A trophic pyramid showing the different trophic levels in a community. b) A food web of the same community
A red-chested cuckoo chick being feed by a significantly smaller Cape robin-chat adult
