De Humboldt a Darwin: una inflexión clave en la historia de la biogeografía

• Main Author: Gustavo Andrés Caponi
• Format: Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina 2008-01-01
• Series: Geosul
• Subjects: Biogeography; Buffon, Darwin, C.; De Candolle, A.; Forbes, E.; Humboldt, A.; Lyell, C.; Biogeografía; Lyell, C..
• Online Access: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/geosul/article/view/12594

If compared with Humboldt’s Biogeography, the Biogeographical theses that Darwin develops in The Origin of the Species present two important new features. The first is theoretical: for Darwin the actual distribution of the living beings is more directly determined by biotic factors than by climate and soil. The second difference, however, is rather methodological: the Biogeography of Humboldt doesn’t consider the historical factors that could explain that distribution. Not only the idea of a genealogical relationship between the species is absent in the Humboldt’s point of view; but also the History of the Earth it is ignored like an important explanatory factor to understand the actual distribution of living beings.