Thomas J. Matthews is a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, a Research Member of the Azorean Biodiversity Group, Portugal, and a Visiting Researcher at the University of the Ryukyus, Japan. He is a leading researcher in the fields of macroecology and biogeography, and much of his research involves the species-area relationship in some form. He is also the lead-author of a key SAR software resource, and an Associate Editor of Frontiers of Biogeography. Kostas A. Triantis is an Assistant Professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Biogeography and, since 2015, has been Director-at-Large of the International Biogeography Society. He is a biogeographer with broad interests in island biogeography, macroecology, and conservation biology and has a long-term fascination with the species–area relationship. Robert J. Whittaker is an expert in island biogeography and conservation biogeography. He has been Professor of Biogeography at the University of Oxford since 2004, and a part-time Professor at University of Copenhagen, in the Centre for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, since 2015. He has published over 150 articles, and three previous books. He is editor-in-chief of Frontiers of Biogeography, the scientific journal of the International Biogeography Society.

'Each chapter of the text is a technical paper written by researchers who have been actively exploring little-known facets of the species-area relationship that have escaped the attention of mainstream ecologists. The results of this effort are frequently interesting and occasionally surprisingly insightful. Community ecologists, landscape ecologists, and conservationists will find useful information about the species-area relationship in this volume … each chapter is presented in standard, scientific communication format. Recommended.' S. R. Fegley, Choice

• Foreword Mark V. Lomolino; 1. The species–area relationship: both general and protean? Thomas J. Matthews, Kostas A. Triantis and Robert J. Whittaker; 2. The History of the Species–Area Relationship Even Tjørve, Thomas J. Matthews and Robert J. Whittaker; 3. The multiple forms and functions of species–area relationship Thomas Matthews, François Rigal, Konstantinos Proios, Kostas Triantis and Robert J. Whittaker; 4. The factors that underpin the shape of the SAR curve Even Tjørve, Kathleen Tjørve , Eva Šizlingová and Arnost Šizling; 5. Functional and phylogenetic diversity–area relationships: a review Florent Mazel and Wilfried Thuiller; 6. Species–area relationships in alien species: pattern and process Tim Blackburn, Phil Cassey and Petr Pysek; 7. Mathematical expressions for the species-area relationship (SAR) and (the hidden) assumptions behind the models Even Tjørve and Kathleen Tjørve; 8. Biodiversity scaling on a continuous plane: geometrical underpinnings of the nested species–area relationship David Storch and Arnost Šizling; 9. Upscaling SARs and the connection with species abundances Luis Borda-de-Agua, Saeid Alirezazadeh, Manuela Neves, Stephen P. Hubbell, Paulo Borges, Pedro Cardoso, Francisco Dionísio and Henrique M. Pereira; 10. The SAR: Is It “Produced by Laws Acting around Us”? John Harte; 11. The species–area relationships of ecological neutral theory James Rosindell and Ryan Chisholm; 12. The integration of the species–area relationship with mechanistic community ecological theory Robert Holt, Dominique Gravel, Adrian Stier and James Rosindell; 13. The identification biodiversity hotspots using the species–area relationship Simone Fattorini; 14. Using the species-area relationship to predict extinctions resulting from habitat loss Simone Fattorini, Werner Ulrich and Thomas J. Matthews; 15. Using network analysis and diversity partitioning to examine the temporal dynamics of the species–area relationship Joseph Veech and Giovanni Strona; 16. Does Geometry dominate extinction due to habitat loss? Athanasios Kallimanis and John Halley; 17. External modulators of species-area relationships Isabel Jones, Carlos Peres, Maíra Benchimol, Anderson S. Bueno, Danielle Storck-Tonon and Ana Filipa Palmeirim; 18. Applied SARs in marine systems and fisheries Karl Ugland and Alexandra Kraberg; 19. Conclusions and future Directions in SAR Research Kostas A. Triantis.