The spatial analysis, and the search for patterns, in any biological feature: demographic, ecological, genetic, morphological, or physiological; see B. Cox and P. Moore (1999). ‘Biogeography transcends classical subject areas…ecological biogeography is concerned with ecological processes occurring over short temporal and short spatial scales, whereas… historical biogeography is concerned with evolutionary processes over millions of years on a large, sometimes global, scale’ (Crisci (2001) J. Biogeog. 28, 2). Comparative biogeography uses the naturally hierarchical phylogenetic relationships of clades to discover the biotic area relationships among local and global biogeographic regions; systematic biogeography is concerned with the classification of biotic areas based on the naturally hierarchical phylogenetic relationships of clades; and evolutionary biogeography seeks to understand evolutionary mechanisms responsible for the distribution of its organisms. Molecular biogeography is ‘that set of approaches that uses genetic data to address the biogeographic structure of lineages and biotas and the evolutionary and Earth history processes that have shaped current population genetic, phylogenetic, and distributional patterns’ (Mantooth and Riddle (2011) Geog. Compass).