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Abstract

       The measurement and mapping of biodiversity have seen spectacular developments in recent decades. On the one hand, species-based metrics are supplemented with phylogenetic and functional approaches. On the other hand, the grain of biodiversity maps becomes finer and finer, as the available data become more comprehensive, not in the least through citizen science. However, major global conservation initiatives remain focused on species, and on ecoregions and hotspots that are defined intuitively and have little analytical substance. Here I present a few lines of research into global biogeography that I have personally pursued: global regionalization based on ordination and classification analyses of plant and animal distributions; defining and mapping cosmopolitan tetrapod vertebrate lineages; as well as defining and mapping ancient plant and animal lineages using different antiquity cu-off values. I follow these up with thoughts on the recolonization potential of such lineages following Anthropocene extinctions. I conclude with a discussion of the relevance of such approaches for biodiversity conservation at the regional and national scale.