Drawing upon such disparate fields as biology, geology, socio- economics, climatology, and philosophy, biogeography takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the origins and maintenance of global patterns of biodiversity. Containing 18 contributions from international scholars, this text covers five main subdisciplines of biogeography: plate tectonics and paleobiogeography; phylogeography and diversification; diversity gradients; marine biogeography; and conservation biogeography.