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Thirty-Six Persian Throw Rugs

• Quammen asks the reader to imagine a rug cut up into thirty-six pieces.
• The rug is no longer intact, he says, and the frayed edges of each piece represent the isolation of many smaller ecosystems now, as the natural world is divided.
• Island ecosystems are a good place to start trying to understand how those smaller ecosystems will function.

The Man Who Knew Islands

• Island biogeography started with Darwin and Wallace, both of whom studied species on islands.
• 'The Theory of Island Biogeography' by MacArthur and Wilson, was a foundational text for island biogeography.
• Darwin and Wallace discovered their theories of evolve at about the same time.

So Huge A Bignes

• Quammen lists the traits, like dispersal ability and adaptive radiation, that help species survive in island environments.
• Island biogeography is concerned with how islands are populated by species, and how many species can...

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