Figure 22.15 An experimental test of island biogeography theory. (a) Researchers in the Florida Keys constructed a scaffold frame around islands and covered the scaffold with tarps to act as a tent when fumigating the islands. Fumigating the islands removed most of the arthropods. (b) Over the course of a year, researchers returned to determine how many species of arthropods had recolonized. By the end of the experiment, the islands had nearly recovered their original number of species, as indicated by the dashed lines, with the near islands containing a higher number of species than the far islands.

Photo by Daniel Simberloff. Data from D. S. Simberloff and E. O. Wilson, Experimental zoogeography of islands: The colonization of empty islands, Ecology 50 (1969): 278–296.