The Biogeography of Geographers: A Content Visualization of Journal Publications

Biogeographers choose to align their scholarship within different domains, from ecological or historical biogeography, to landscape ecology, macroecology, or the analytical perspective initiated with the theory of island biogeography. Biogeography is also practiced under the umbrella of geography, as geographical biogeography. Using the ISI Web of Science journal article database, I performed content visualizations of research authored by those biogeographers with an identity or interest aligned with geography. Content affinities with ecological biogeography were strong. However, physical geography materialized as the core of biogeographical inquiry for geographers based upon the central location of physical geography within these visualizations, and upon the ranking of journals where these geographers publish. I argue that the systems legacy of physical geography provides geographical biogeographers with an identity and an invitation to connect with the field of scholars advancing the study of complex systems.