Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
positively. Taylor (1960) analyzed the geographic distribution of a species of
mollusks with a panbiogeographic approach. Löve (1967) presented a pos-
itive general impression of
Panbiogeography
and
Space, Time, Form.
Later
European references to the works of Croizat and panbiogeographic ana-
lyses appeared in France (Cusset and Cusset 1988a, 1988b; Janvier 1984;
Lourenço1998)andItaly(Zunino1992).IntheUnitedStates,Simpson,Dar-
lington, and Mayr knew Croizat's works but did not mention them. It is inter-
esting that during a brief period, Simpson corresponded with Croizat (cor-
respondence that Simpson discontinued). Ernst Mayr wrote,
Neither Simpson nor anyone else has affected my treatment of Cro-
izat, but only his totally unscientific style and methodology. Time is
too short to argue with such authors and one cannot simply refer to
Croizat without a detailed analysis. I am prepared to be criticized for
this, but any scientist has to make the decision where to draw the
line. (Nelson 1977:452)
Usually, authors criticized Croizat's writing style. For example, it was
considered “verbose, meandering and tangential, archaic in style, loaded
with seeming internal contradictions, and with subjects being picked and
dropped at will” (Keast 1991:468).
In New Zealand Croizat's ideas were welcomed initially. In the 1950s,
Lucy Cranwell, a botanist from the Auckland Museum, corresponded with
Croizat, and after moving to the United States they kept contact (Grehan
1989). Robin Craw, Michael Heads, John Grehan, Ian Henderson, and Rod
Page discussed panbiogeographic principles and applied them to the ana-
lysis of the biogeography of the country (Craw 1979, 1982, 1984a, 1984b,
1985; Craw and Gibbs 1984; Craw and Sermonti 1988; Craw et al. 1999;
Grehan 1988b, 1989, 2001a; Heads 1984, 1985a, 1985b, 1986; Hender-
son 1991). Supporters of panbiogeography and cladistic biogeography ini-
tiated a lively debate about the relative values of both approaches (Craw
1982, 1983, 1988a, 1988b; Craw and Page 1988; Craw and Weston 1984;
Humphries and Parenti 1999; Humphries and Seberg 1989; Page 1987;
Platnick and Nelson 1988; Seberg 1986). In 1984, Craw and Gibbs edited
a special volume of the journal
Tuatara,
dedicated to analyze the influence
of
Panbiogeography
and
Principia Botanica
in biogeography and system-
atic botany, respectively. In addition to contributions by Craw, Grehan, and
Heads, it included a posthumous contribution by Croizat (1984b), a transla-
tion to English of a paper on the Darwinian theory (Croizat 1984a) originally
