Zoogeography as the Study of Relationships between Wild Animals and Geodiversity

Abstract

In this paper, the potential for wild-animal studies from the perspective of physical geography is discussed. First, recent progress in biogeography, arising mainly from biological research, is reviewed. Second, as focusing on landforms and geomorphic processes is useful for studying the relationship between animal distribution and geodiversity, the role of landforms in animal distribution based on previous studies is discussed. Next, examples of landform-oriented research pertaining to relationships between mountain geodiversity and fauna are presented, specifically for mountain pond and landslide ecotopes. Incorporating geodiversity, which is understood in association with landforms, into small-scale ecogeographic studies will contribute to validating the results of research on large-scale distribution patterns revealed by phylogeography. Understanding wild-animal distribution from a causal viewpoint requires both an evolutionary history perspective of geodiversity and a dispersal history perspective of wildlife, and when the latter needs to be examined in detail, collaboration with landscape genetics can be beneficial.