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To unravel the complex shared history of the Earth and its life forms, biogeographers analyze patterns of biodiversity, species distribution, and geological history. So far, the field of biogeography has been fragmented into divergent systematic and evolutionary approaches, with no overarching or unifying research theme or method. In this text, Lynne Parenti and Malte Ebach address this discord and outline comparative tools to unify biogeography. Rooted in phylogenetic systematics, this comparative biogeographic approach offers a comprehensive empirical framework for discovering and deciphering the patterns and processes of the distribution of life on Earth. The authors cover biogeography from its fundamental ideas to the most effective ways to implement them. Real-life examples illustrate concepts and problems, including the first comparative biogeographical analysis of the Indo-West Pacific, an introduction to biogeographical concepts rooted in the earth sciences, and the integration of phylogeny, evolution and earth history.

Lynne R. Parenti is Research Scientist and Curator of Fishes at the National Museum of Natural History in the Smithsonian Institution, and co-editor, with R. Claro and K. C. Lindeman, of Ecology of the Marine Fishes of Cuba (2002), co-editor, with M.L.J. Stiassny and G. D. Johnson, of Interrelationships of Fishes (1996, 1998), and co-author, with C. J. Humphries, of Cladistic biogeography (1986, 1999). Malte C. Ebach is a Post Doctoral Fellow at Arizona State University's International Institute for Species Exploration, and co-author, with D. M. Williams, of Foundations of Systematics and Biogeography (2008), and co-editor, with R. S. Tangey, of Biogeography in a Changing World (2006).

"Parenti and Ebach provide a fine introduction to the aims and methods of comparative biogeography, and the difference that it makes to our view of the world. Energetic and sometimes provocative, this book shows us how we can start to untangle the interconnected threads of biotic and planetary evolution to more clearly understand how earth and life evolve together."—Sir Peter Crane, FRS, Yale University