History

Our interests for Biogeography date from 1984, within a project for the study of small mammals in southern Iberia funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. This line of research was strengthened by the inclusion of “Zoogeograhy” and “Animal Biodiversity and Conservation” as subjects in the Biological Sciences degree programme of the Universidad de Málaga. Our research group was officially constituted by the Department for Education and Science (Regional Government of Andalusia) in 1989. It was formerly named “Morphology, Systematic and Biogeography of Vertebrates“.

We research mostly the biogeography of vertebrate groups, but we are also interested in invertebrates, plants and other biological entities. An important part of our work includes, besides, methodological issues of interest for the study of biogeography. We develop and improve own methods with applications for theoretical studies and for the conservation of biodiversity.

The team is leader in the analysis of chorotypes, showing that there are common patterns in the distributions of species. The team has also devoted efforts to the development and application of species distribution models, the most relevant contribution in this topic being the Favourability Function. Currently, we analyse the impacts of global change on biodiversity; update the Spanish atlas of terrestrial mammals; investigate for the management and sustainability of game and marine resources; analyze the ecological dimension of indigenous peoples; and explore patterns, useful for sanitary prevention, in the biogeography of zoonotic diseases, transmitted by animals.