Breaking news: January 2010 The first copy of the Melanesian bibliography is now on-line. I have not included the .pdf copies due to copyright issues, however if you can not gain access to a particular article, please email me and I will see if I can get you a copy. If any of you would like to add to it, I would really appreciate it. The more resources we have in it, the more useful it will be. Happy researching!!!! To download the endnote file click here To download the bibliography as a word document click here December 2009 With support from the Marshall Field Fund, Mark Westneat and I have obtained a small grant to do preliminary research in the Solomon Islands this March. A perfect time to leave Chicago! October 2009 An overview of the meeting has been published in the journal Frontiers of Biogeography. You may download a free copy of it here. Overview: The islands of Melanesia have served as the laboratory within which some of the seminal ideas of biogeography have arisen. A complex geologic history coupled with variations in sea level change have provided the opportunity for profligate speciation. But what are the common patterns we see here? Too often researchers are focused only on a small subset of taxa. The purpose of this meeting is to gather researchers from a variety of taxa to examine the patterns of species distribution and history in Melanesia. By adopting a multi-taxa approach we will be able to identify commonalities across taxa as well biologically relevant differences. This meeting provided a unique opportunity for researchers to interact with conservation organizations and government agencies. Our goals will continue to provide an avenue for conversation between data generators and data users, hopefully catalyzing science to action. This meeting and subsequent collaboration would not have been possible without funding from the Encyclopedia of Life, the Smithsonian Institution, Conservation International, the The Wildlife Conservation Society the University of the South Pacific and the International Biogeography Society. Bibliography: One of the main goals of this project is to develop a community generated bibliography of biogeography for the region. I am requesting that each participant provide between twenty and twenty-five references. Once compiled these will be distributed as a .pdf/Endnote Library bundle to key researchers, institutions and organizations working in the region. To start us off, I can’t resist but post this article: Wallace, A. R. (1863) On the Physical Geography of the Malay Archipelago. Journal of the Royal Geography Society of London. 33:217-234Biogeography_of_Melanesia_files/biogeography.enlBiogeography_of_Melanesia_files/Melanesian_Bibliography.docBiogeography_of_Melanesia_files/12thstreetbeach.JPGhttp://www.biogeography.org/html/fb/FBv1i1/FBv1i1p17_Drew.pdfhttp://www.eol.orghttp://www.mnh.si.edu/http://www.conservation.orghttp://www.conservation.orghttp://archive.wcs.org/globalconservation/marine/46886040.htmlhttp://www.usp.ac.fjhttp://www.usp.ac.fjhttp://www.biogeography.orgBiogeography_of_Melanesia_files/Wallace%20%281863%29.pdfBiogeography_of_Melanesia_files/Wallace%20%281863%29.pdfBiogeography_of_Melanesia_files/Wallace%20%281863%29_1.pdfshapeimage_2_link_0shapeimage_2_link_1shapeimage_2_link_2shapeimage_2_link_3shapeimage_2_link_4shapeimage_2_link_5shapeimage_2_link_6shapeimage_2_link_7shapeimage_2_link_8shapeimage_2_link_9shapeimage_2_link_10shapeimage_2_link_11shapeimage_2_link_12shapeimage_2_link_13

Birds of Paradise from the Field Museum’s ornithological collections