**Introduction**

#### **Introductory Chapter: The Main Directions and Tasks of Pure and Applied Biogeography in Solving the Global Problems of Our Time Introductory Chapter: The Main Directions and Tasks of Pure and Applied Biogeography in Solving the Global Problems of Our Time**

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.72873

Levente Hufnagel Levente Hufnagel

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.72873

Pure and applied biogeography is the study of the spatial and temporal distribution of taxa, life forms, communities, biomes, and natural or human-influenced ecosystems of our planet in large scales.

Biogeography is one of the oldest life sciences, because already since Alexander von Humboldt's work (1769–1859) it has been a theoretically grounded discipline.

Phytogeography and zoogeography are classical subdisciplines of biogeography that study the spatial and temporal distribution of plants and animals, the flora and fauna. Also important recent subdisciplines are island biogeography [1, 2], phylogeography [3], spatial population genetics [4], paleobiogeography [5], systematic and evolutionary biogeography [6–8], fragmentation, metapopulation and landscape biogeography [9–11], gradient analyses [12], and ecogeography [13].

However, many new theoretical trends have emerged recently [14, 15], a number of new methods are used [16], and biogeography has gained outstanding social significance through the effects of human land use on natural communities [17].

The fastest growing trends in biogeography are those that are closely related to quantitative ecology [18–20]. Quantitative ecology is one of the most important disciplines of our time, which is an indispensable part of ecology, environmental science, agricultural sciences, research methodology, biometrics, and also biogeography. Quantitative ecology is about the application of biomathematics, environmental informatics, and biostatistical methods in life and environmental sciences that relate to data collection, data analysis, modeling, monitoring, evaluation, and data communication tasks of supraindividual organizations. Quantitative approach has great significance in biogeography where large quantities of observation, measurement, experiment, or literature data are available in complex systems, processes, or phenomena.
