Thirty years ago, two young biologists named Robert MacArthur and Edward
O. Wilson triggered a far-reaching scientific revolution. In a book
titled The Theory of Island Biogeography, they presented a new view of a
little-understood matter: the geographical patterns in which animal and
plant species occur. Why do marsupials exist in Australia and South
America, but not in Africa? Why do tigers exist in Asia, but not in New
Guinea? Influenced by MacArthur and Wilson's book, an entire generation
of ecologists has recognized that island biogeography - the study of the
distribution of species on islands and islandlike patches of landscape -
yields important insights into the origin and extinction of species
everywhere. The new mode of thought focuses particularly on a single
question: Why have island ecosystems always suffered such high rates of
extinction? In our own age, with all the world's landscapes, from
Tasmania to the Amazon to Yellowstone, now being carved into islandlike
fragments by human activity, the implications of island biogeography are
more urgent than ever. Until now, this scientific revolution has
remained unknown to the general public. But over the past eight years,
David Quammen has followed its threads on a globe-circling journey of
discovery. In Madagascar, he has considered the meaning of tenrecs, a
group of strange, prickly mammals native to that island. On the island
of Guam, he has confronted a pestilential explosion of snakes and
spiders. In these and other places, he has prowled through wild terrain
with extraordinary scientists who study unusual beasts. The result is
The Song of the Dodo, a book filled with landscape, wonder, and ideas.
Besides being a grandoutdoor adventure, it is, above all, a wake-up call
to the age of extinctions.
