The aim of this virtual issue on biogeographies is to highlight and draw insights from a range of papers that showcase the geographical field's analytical and ethical purchase and relevance.

To unify physical and human geography, Wace (1967) first championed biogeography, the newest geographical field in the Australian curriculum at the time, locating human animals as both natural and cultural. Since then, the field has displayed its changing ontology in Geographical Research (named Australian Geographical Studies prior to 2005). Heralding the cultural turn in biogeography that shuns a nature culture dichotomy, Wace's call has been partially taken up by both physical and human biogeographers, but with less unity or critical mass than desirable given the catastrophic impacts of humans on the biosphere. In the interceding period Kirkpatrick (1988, p. 46) has reviewed (primarily plant) biogeography research and traced the shift from regional and formation‐based descriptive accounts to mapping species of economic importance, to powerful computer‐based geospatial analyses, and the more recent cultural turn in biogeography. He has stressed both the recency and diversity of Australian biogeographies, suggesting cultural biogeography is “one pole of a biogeographic dimension in which the other pole is purely concerned with the natural, insofar as it exists.” Despite such diversity in approach, unification of the field of biogeography has been partially achieved but remains elusive. Reiterating commensalism and the coevolution of humans and nonhuman nature, Kirkpatrick (1988, p. 48) has also pointed out that “people, through their influence on firing regimes, promoted Eucalyptus in the interglacial before ours, replacing the Casuarina so prominent in the penultimate interglacial.” In turn, considering Wace's rejection of the monoclimatic succession sere as ‘natural’ vegetation, Head (2012) has reflected on important scholarship stressing the recency of British colonisation in Australia and previous Aboriginal trading relationships with Asia‐Pacific nations, which necessitates attention to Indigenous Australian historical biogeographies and rejecting the notion that ‘invasive’ species are those directly introduced by humans.

Wace (1967) also noted the paucity of zoobiogeographical study and a tendency to separate plants and animals. This virtual issue, therefore, specifically focuses on nonhuman animals, whether wild or domestic, introduced, invasive, or some other categorical construction. Following Head (2012), I have sought neither to reinforce species divides nor to homogenise nonhuman difference but rather have worked to bring nonhuman animals into accounts of change already signalled. Foregrounding the zoogeographical research trajectory in Geographical Researchinvolved initially searching for key terms such animal geography/animal geographies, biogeography/biogeographies, more than human/more‐than‐human, non‐human/non‐human/nonhuman, nature culture/nature‐culture/natureculture, animal agency, animal subjectivity, anthropocentric/anthropocentrism, human exceptionalism, anthropomorphism, animal ethics, animal rights, and animal welfare. This broad search strategy uncovered a wide array of general scholarship while omitting key articles about specific animal species and breeds such as penguins, snails, and livestock (Head, 2000; Le Heron, 2019; Yarwood, Tonts, & Jones, 2010), whose intrinsic value and subjectivities are critical in a virtual issue on the nonhuman animal other.

To pare down the list, each issue published from 1988 was manually examined, excluding plants, book reviews, and general terms such as the Anthropocene, climate change, food security, environmentalism, urban political ecology, land and water management, backyard, and biodiversity. This strategy uncovered some research with incidental mention of nonhuman animals (such as ferals/pests), being focused more generally on backyards, gardens, landscapes, domesticity, and rivers. As such, research not specifically featuring nonhuman animals was omitted except for some economic geographies of agriculture, fisheries, and forestry because of such works' important contemporary links with (the increasing) commodification of nonhuman nature in the Anthropocene.

Since Kirkpatrick (1988), physical biogeographical research up to 2011 has been primarily that involving habitat mapping, after which time predominately cultural (or critical) animal geographies are typical. Yet, as with most geographical research, there are strong nature culture interconnections within this research. For example, Dyer and Hill's (1990) use of nearest‐neighbour analysis of Wedge‐tailed Shearwater (Puffinus pacificus) nesting burrows has been borrowed from urban geography (where it was used to illustrate relationships between towns and their neighbours). Such cross‐fertilisation between fields of the discipline illuminated a highly significant clustering distribution of birds in habitats that had been modified by humans, and which were less densely populated by the birds. Those researchers suggested colony‐nesting species might need social interaction in sparsely populated habitats; a preference similar to human settlement in many rural places, where clusters gather in towns for social and economic interaction.

Habitat modelling remains crucially important, characterising geographical knowledge, perspectives, and approaches to nonhuman nature, as well as exemplifying the utility of integrating physical and human geography. Hill and Phinn (1993) have used new high‐resolution satellite imagery to show the higher prevalence of the Swamp Wallaby Wallabia bicolour in certain seral stages of revegetated mine sites, in comparison with ‘natural’ habitats. Those sites were “an example of positive transformation of the environment at least for one species of wildlife” (Hill & Phinn, 1993, pp. 11–12). They identify a lack of policy around such positive human interventions for the nonhuman world and evoke the powerlessness of humans to restore the “original vegetation cover as rapidly as possible” (Hill & Phinn, 1993, p. 12) because of the very long temporal scale involved, a conclusion that still applies today. Such recourse to planetary timescales and the need for (continued) mutual coevolution of human and nonhuman nature suggests synthesising empirical and critical approaches to the nonhuman world remains as pertinent today as it was a generation of researchers ago.

Analysing a 38‐year timeframe of aerial photos, Worth (1996) has shown a 47% loss in a significant koala (Phascolarctos cinereus [Goldfuss]) habitat due to residential expansion and mining, at a time when very little was known of their habitat preferences. Faunal impact statements at the time “justified the destruction of koala habitat … on grounds that other local bushland areas were sufficiently large to act as a reserve,” claimed development was a “short‐term loss of habitat” and that “koalas will cross open areas at night” (Worth, 1996 p. 92). Such rationalisations lacked understanding of the need for adequate patch size and connecting corridors, knowledge available through island biogeography principles, reiterating a need for critical reflection on policy and political manoeuvrings alongside empirical evidence in koala biogeographies. Worth (1996, p. 93) has interpreted koala foraging in high risk urban areas as signs that the population was endangered due to “natural and anthropogenic hazards faced by all Koalas.” These predictions have not ameliorated the decline of this iconic species and nothing since gives any reassurance of authorities responding to such evidence and predictions for mitigation of koalas' nationally threatened status. Unifying intra‐disciplinary biogeographical research is now even more critical.

Even with a widespread, common species such as the Wedge‐tailed Shearwater, Carter (1997) has shown that buildings and artificial walking tracks funnel water into their nesting burrows, compromising successful egg hatching. In a signal to the importance of relational thinking beyond the targeted actants, she has noted that, irrespective of the conservation status and range of species, such micro‐scale processes nonetheless “are linked and merge across scales” (Carter, 1997, p. 163). This type of observation remains ignored by industry standard standards of assessment and management today. More recently, Pert and Norton (2011) have modelled the distribution of the Red Kangaroo (Macropus rufus), Dunnart (Sminthopsis youngsoni), and European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus), showing the critical importance of radioactive elements in the soil and distance to water that had been undetected at the bioregional scale of analysis. The utility of their work is in spatially prioritising field work investment and forecasting the importance of water for nonhumans in arid and semi‐arid zones, an increasing challenge with the advent of the Anthropocene and climate‐related change.

Turning to more overt critical/cultural biogeography, Head (2000) has examined a fundamental contradiction in the environmental restoration of the Summerland Peninsula on Phillip Island, Victoria. Little Penguins (Eudyptula minor) return from fishing to their burrows in the sand during the nightly Penguin Parade, as many thousands watch and photograph ‘nature’ while their own impacts are elided. The costs of substantial infrastructure are derived from the substantial numbers of human visitors, and the “rights of penguins, seals and mutton‐birds to undisturbed habitat would never have been recognised in public policy had not the economic health of Phillip Island, and increasingly the tourist industry of the entire State, been dependent on them” (Head, 2000, p. 50). Using government park and environmental documentation, Head highlights the rhetoric used to plan, regulate, and promote the heavily managed area within a nature/culture binary and notes how Aboriginal presence is placed within nature, with the remaining human absence from a ‘wilderness’ ideal requiring “the settled part of settler history to be removed” by compulsory acquisition and demolition of houses (Head, 2000, p. 52). While the purposeful didactics of the signage and ‘interpretive centre’ provide a sound educational experience for visitors, nature and culture are siloed and compartmentalised, rather than interconnected. Her attention to researcher positioning and the embodied loss of “a nature that can be touched, held, eaten, chased and rolled in” is ontologically important in calling for greater understandings of affective impacts and the rights of the nonhuman world (Head, 2000, p. 51).

The quest to introduce critical biogeographies illustrates the importance of the nonhuman as subject in, rather than object of, research and suggests a need to consider these subjectivities alongside empiricism. In this vein, Taylor and Carter (2013) have introduced the concept of agency and its application in ‘managed’ human–dolphin encounters. Human struggle to overcome their own exceptionalism is evident in the various ways that dolphin agency is denied, erased, asserted, and celebrated—but always within a ‘protectionist’ discourse. Rather than articulating a relational encounter between hybrid actants, the discourse mandated that human beings ‘allow’ the dolphin to exert its agency and acknowledged a dolphin may be ‘disturbed by humans,’ which frames dolphin behaviour—in terminating an encounter or accepting food—as a biological rather than agentic reaction. A minority of texts described dolphins as “finding humans ‘interesting’,” “actively seeking out” humans, and even “using humans” (Taylor & Carter, 2013, p. 7) suggesting a more thorough recognition of dolphin intelligence and choice. The authors highlight that dolphin agency is beyond human ‘management,’ and dolphin visitors are likened to those of an ambassador from another world. Encounter sites were therefore conceptualised as an inter‐species embassy, affording all actants appropriate etiquette and protocols. Nevertheless, the dominant paradigm requires human ‘management’ of ‘nature’ and privileges evidence‐based research such as minimum distances and visitor numbers, and ultimately, human safety remains foremost in speciesist decision‐making.

Instone and Sweeney (2014) have foregrounded dog subjectivities, while juxtaposing human care of dog bodily waste (faeces) with the disposability of dog bodies as waste (through cruelty and euthanasia), both of which erase dog agency in urban spaces. “Institutionalised killing of unwanted but healthy dogs stabilises the city as a human space, one not overrun with dogs, and establishes or re‐establishes order in light of the disturbance engendered by ‘too many’ dogs, which would threaten human comfort and convenience” (Instone & Sweeney, 2014, p. 361). Such violent relationalities within co‐existing space exonerate human fault in pet overbreeding and perpetuate anthropocentrism through the tragic consequences for dogs. In the research about both dolphins and dogs, the abandonment of human control and ‘management’ is required for flatter, mutualistic relationalities and requires both empirical and critical approaches to advance a posthuman geo‐ethic.

Combining actor‐network theory and assemblage thinking with mixed methods (and unifying approaches traditionally associated with both human and physical geography), Graham (2016) has highlighted horses—and thoroughbreds in particular—as co‐constitutive actants of racing and sales festivals. Horses feature in the rural idyll of green, fenced paddocks, co‐creating the regional “eque‐cultural” place‐identity and iconic “equescape” of Scone, New South Wales, as a “premier breeding location” and the ‘horse capital of Australia” (Graham, 2016, p. 216). Overturning local constructions that such events are “celebrations of animals or produce” (Graham, 2016, p. 217), she illustrates horse agency in resisting gates and being ridden and their calmness during parades. Yet dominant social constructions positioned horses as “prized possessions and integral drawcards … this representation as an object, however, provided little attention to the individuality of horses and does not allow for a consideration of the role that horses have played in the construction of their live[d] world” (Graham, 2016, p. 221). Horse positioning within the assemblage is dominated by anthropocentric constructions rather than acknowledging geo‐ethics and nonhuman agency in “more than social networks” (Graham, 2016, p. 221).

In a turn to regulatory environments, Morgan and Osborne (2016) have recounted how ‘rational’ scientistic logic and evidence required under Queensland planning law forced local activists opposed to the Traveston Dam proposal to abandon other forms of knowing that are local, situated, embodied, and explicitly value‐laden. Powerful social factors such as loss of community and sense of place, connectivity, agricultural production, social capital, and Indigenous heritage motivated the activists but were unquantifiable and rejected within positivist planning and policy processes. Consequently, the campaign shifted focus to three species protected under the federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999: the Mary River Turtle, (Elusor macrurus), Mary River Cod (Maccullochella mariensis), and especially the Australian Lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri). National and international scientific assessments of threat to the Lungfish were the only basis for appeal by the activists and, eventually, the Commonwealth Minister overruled the state government to ban the dam. Recourse to Lungfish subjectivity and intrinsic value was not advantageous, and the Lungfish itself remains rarely sighted—in the study as in the field; rather, the ancient fish has been symbolic of anticipated environmental damage. The dominant paradigm and epistemology of planning and environmental laws based on quantifiable evidence defining the Lungfish as endangered allowed its leverage within anthropocentric and positivist impact assessment and approval processes. Such unifying research must continue in a politically structured world.

Similarly, Le Heron (2019) has analysed assemblages in which were enmeshed a rare, locally‐endemic land snail (Powelliphanta augusta), its habitat, a coal mining company, government departments, regulations, and environmental nongovernment organisations. After the Conservation Minister announced “we have decided to allow the snails to be moved” to permit mining, conflict and competing values variously positioned the snail as noticed, absent, denied, deemed translocatable, protected, not of national value, a disruptive object, voiceless, victim of habitat destruction, existing in many locations including laboratory, a metric in breeding and monitoring, a scientific classification, and resistor of translocation (as a species) (see Le Heron, 2019, p. 215, ad passim). Speciesism featured in that the land snails are native species but have not been equally valued as other native or economic creatures. Snail habitat was both destroyed and seen as translocatable and constructible but recalling Hill and Phinn's (1993) recourse to planetary timescales, human incapacity to recreate snail requirements for dense scrub and undisturbed leaf litter led, finally, to declaration of the snail as functionally extinct (living in laboratory but not in the wild). Conversely, snail conservation politics highlighted its iconic nature without regard to other species that live there—a type of reverse speciesism—within a further species hierarchy invoking the human: “framing of P. augusta's material and discursive plights indicate great reluctance to conceptualise at the outset, worlds where there is equivalence between human needs and non‐human needs (voiced in human discourses)” (Le Heron, 2019, p. 227).

Over the period under consideration here, global commodification of nonhuman animals has increased. By way of example, Yarwood et al. (2010) have documented nearly a century of numbers and patterns in food and fibre exhibitions at the Perth Royal Show. These data show significant changes in species (for example, Alpacas) and breeds, reflecting traditions and innovations across agriculture and the impact of global factors such as wars, lost and new markets, intensification, and, more recently, diversity and hobby farming. Their article notes the enduring attraction of live animals exhibited to the largely urban attendees. Given the emphasis on rare breeds (especially in poultry, dogs, goats, and so on) and the exquisite care taken of ‘best‐in‐show’ contenders, the authors caution that the impression taken away by the crowds could be quite misleading compared to the commodifying actualities of industrial, large‐scale agricultural productivism of the farmed livestock.

In turn, Butt and Taylor (2018) have examined how narrow and static understandings of (increasingly intensified) farming and food production, or what constitutes rurality and authentic (non‐industrial and, for some, soil‐based) farming practices, underpinned planning processes in peri‐urban areas of Victoria to depoliticise conflict in broiler and egg production. What was laid down and policed in established regulatory logics are buffer zones around the factory farms, vehicle movements, and the like to reduce the loss of amenity for neighbours. What was not to be heard in the development approval process were any appeals to nonhuman ethics or welfare in this massive‐scale ‘factory’ farming. As with the Lungfish campaign referred to above, nonhuman animal welfare was debated ‘outside’ the formal planning processes, but the regulators redirected such deliberations to the welfare or environmental protection agencies. Advocacy on behalf of the chickens was virtually silent and when presented, ruled extraneous to the achievement of a satisfactory planning consensus. This outcome is despite the inherent slaughter of half of all chicks (the males) in hatcheries for egg laying within intensive broiler systems that commodify up to a million birds as inevitable ‘wastage’ and casualties within an efficient business model. While Holmes (2019) has specifically explored the path‐dependent journey of rural occupancy and transformation in specific dairy, beef, horse, and fish farms, cows are anthropocentrically purposeful in terms of explicating to agribusiness the number required to employ a ‘man’ on a small farm—the decline of the small farm typically showing smaller sized or low‐yielding herds where cow numbers are an indicator of human ‘success’ in the economically structured world.

More recently still, Schouten et al. (2020) have studied honey hunting by Indigenous communities in Sumbawa, Indonesia, in the context of massive logging and habitat degradation, where honey from the target species, the Asian honey bee (Apis dorsata) has provided, on average, more than two‐thirds of the annual cash income for their informants. High production costs for maize and rice growing (advocated by government) ensured the greater profitability of honey hunting. Some current harvesting practices threaten the viability of the hives, but (illegal) logging of host trees by corporations is a more significant danger. Specifically, hunters cut brood comb away killing the eggs, larva, and pupa before removing the honey laden comb in buckets. Little attention is given by the hunters to the impact of their harvesting on the viability of raided hives, threats to the queen, and the impact of appropriating almost all stored food for feeding future bee populations. The study notes the hunting communities show a “paucity of ecological data on A. dorsata and specifically on sustainable levels of harvesting” (Schouten et al., 2020, p. 73); this is an important caution against the frequent assumption of robust/resilient/informed indigenous knowledge and inclusive, non‐anthropocentric relations with nonhuman others, and more importantly, the need for integration of empirical and critical biogeographies.

Finally, fish and other animals have been the objects of disputed human rights and wants (for example, biodiversity values and fishing livelihoods) in a complex legal lakescape across multiple scales, absenting their subjectivities (Gillespie, 2016). Like Gillespie, O'Gorman (2016) has explored the agency of Australian Pelicans (Pelecanus conspicillatus) in co‐creating ‘law’ and ‘spatiality’ during a government‐sanctioned mass killing of pelicans in breeding sites in the Coorong, South Australia. This conflict involved local fishers, Aboriginal traditional egg collectors, local and especially metropolitan ornithologists, public servants, and law drafters and legislators entangling spatial, legal, economic, and conservation/scientific factors based on early 1920s emerging scientific knowledges of the pelican and other native bird species. The study has shown myriad inconsistencies in the positioning of pelicans for protection and as fishing industry pests, with apparent resolution of competing interests achieved by leasing the nesting islands to the ornithological society. While pelicans exert their agency through ‘adaptability’ and continued efforts at reproduction, their population numbers continue to decline despite more recent laws including Ramsar protection. As with the previous generation of researchers—for example, those predicting the population decline of the koala and problems for even widespread species—time is running short for combining all we have to offer to a posthuman world.

To conclude, decades ago, Wace (1967, p. 24) argued that geographers are well used to understanding (co)evolutionary timescales, acutely attuned to study of the “evolution and emergence of man and his enormous impact upon the rest of the biosphere … [and that] … historical explanations of the ranges of many taxa are therefore bound to become more and more reliant on cultural records” and especially on “cultural zoogeography.”

The purpose of this virtual issue is to stress the critical need for geographers to collectively draw together all empirical and critical biogeographies knowledge and approaches. There remains a divide between human and physical geography, which may reflect structural rather than actual divides given evidence of bridges across the subdisciplines in scholarship and among individuals identifying simply as geographers (without further qualification). Physical/quantitative biogeographers and critical/cultural biogeographers need to be encouraged to collaborate in specifically designed research and writing teams. It is critical to understand species loss, habitat change, and other matters in gathering public support for listings, providing evidence to hearings, and assessing threats from anticipated climate change, bushfires, urbanisation, and other problems. We also need scholars who focus on animal rights, welfare, subjectivism, or agency in a world with increasing violence toward nonhuman animals. Discipline leaders, editors, research grant teams, and individuals can pursue respectful integration of ‘the two cultures’ to enable a posthuman world in light of the current and coming Anthropocene. Universities and geography departments can mandate biogeography courses within programs such as ecology, planning, or politics as well as in geography per se. The courses themselves need to integrate critical approaches with the study of classic biogeography patterns and processes such as distribution, range, dispersal, colonisation, evolution, and extinction. For example, humans, as animals, have mirrored these processes through their spread, range expansion, colonisation of territories, and causation of extinctions, and the geo‐ethics of such worldly dominance by one species requires critical examination. As Head (2012, pp. 172 and 176) has argued, “coming from different directions, there is considerable convergence—if still contradictions of terminology—in posthumanist approaches in human geography, and the conceptualisation of the Anthropocene in physical geography and paleoecology … the infusion of posthumanist perspectives into a more physical biogeography offers great promise.” As such, the great promise of uniting physical and human geography through biogeographies has commenced but critical mass in this endeavour remains a pressing concern.

这个关于生物地理学的虚拟期刊的目的是要突出并从一系列展示地理领域的分析和道德购买及相关性的论文中得出见解。

为了统一自然地理学和人文地理学，Wace（1967）首次倡导了生物地理学，即当时澳大利亚课程中最新的地理学领域，将人类动物定位于自然和文化。从那时起，该领域就在地理研究（2005年之前命名为澳大利亚地理研究）中展示了其不断变化的本体。Wace的呼吁预示着生物地理学的文化转向避免了自然文化的二分法，但物理和人类生物地理学家都已部分接受了Wace的号召，但是鉴于人类对生物圈的灾难性影响，Wace的呼吁缺乏统一性或临界质量。在此期间，柯克帕特里克（1988，第 46）审查了（主要是植物）生物地理学研究，并追踪了从区域性和基于地层的描述性描述向具有重要经济意义的物种制图，基于计算机的强大地理空间分析以及最近的生物地理学文化转向的转变。他强调了澳大利亚生物地理学的新近性和多样性，这表明文化生物地理学是“在生物地理学方面的一个极点，其中另一个极点纯粹与自然有关，只要它存在就可以。” 尽管方法如此多样，但生物地理学领域的统一已经部分实现，但仍然难以捉摸。重申纪念主义和人类与非人类自然的共同进化，柯克帕特里克（Kirkpatrick，1988年），第 48）还指出，“人们通过对射击制度的影响，促进了桉树在我们之前的冰川间的发展，从而取代了在倒数第二个冰川间如此突出的木麻黄。” 反过来，考虑到瓦斯（Wace）拒绝将单气候演替序列视为“自然”植被，赫德（Head）（2012）反映了一项重要的学术研究，该研究强调了英国在澳大利亚的殖民统治以及与亚太国家以前的原住民贸易关系，因此有必要关注土著居民澳大利亚历史上的生物地理学并拒绝“入侵”物种是人类直接引入的物种的观点。

Wace（1967）还指出了动物地理学研究的匮乏以及动植物分离的趋势。因此，这个虚拟问题专门针对非人类动物，无论是野生的还是家养的，引进的，入侵的或其他分类构造。继Head（2012）之后，我既未寻求加强物种鸿沟，也未寻求均一化非人类差异，而是试图将非人类动物纳入已经预示的变化之中。在地理研究中预测动物地理研究轨迹涉及最初搜索关键术语，例如动物地理/动物地理，生物地理/生物地理，而不是人类/人类以外，非人类/非人类/非人类，自然文化/自然文化/自然文化，动物机构，动物主观性，以人为中心/人类中心主义，人类例外论，拟人化，动物伦理，动物权利和动物福利。这种广泛的搜索策略发现了广泛的一般奖学金，而忽略了有关特定动物物种和品种（例如企鹅，蜗牛和牲畜）的重要文章（Head，  2000； Le Heron，  2019； Yarwood，Tonts和＆Jones，  2010）。内在价值和主观性对于非人类动物的虚拟问题至关重要。

为了缩减清单，人工检查了1988年出版的每期杂志，其中不包括植物，书评和诸如人类世，气候变化，粮食安全，环境主义，城市政治生态学，土地和水管理，后院和生物多样性等一般术语。该策略发现了一些偶然提及非人类动物（例如野生动物/小果皮）的研究，这些研究通常集中在后院，花园，景观，家园和河流上。因此，除了农业，渔业和林业的一些经济地理区域外，没有专门针对非人类动物的研究被省略了，因为这类作品与人类世间人类非自然（日益）商品化的重要当代联系。

自从Kirkpatrick（1988）以来，到2011年的自然生物地理研究主要涉及栖息地制图，在此之后，典型的是文化（或重要）动物地理学。然而，与大多数地理研究一样，该研究内部也存在着强烈的自然文化关联。例如，Dyer和Hill（1990）使用楔尾水（Puffinus pacificus）的最近邻分析）嵌套洞穴是从城市地理学那里借来的（用来说明城镇与邻居之间的关系）。该学科领域之间的这种相互施肥，说明了鸟类在人为改变的栖息地中的分布非常集中，而栖息地却没有那么密集。这些研究人员认为，在人烟稀少的栖息地中，殖民地物种可能需要社会互动。这种偏好类似于许多农村地区的人类住区，在这些农村地区，聚集的人群聚集在城镇中，以进行社会和经济互动。

栖息地建模仍然至关重要，它描述了地理知识，非人类性的观点和方法，并举例说明了将自然地理和人文地理相结合的效用。Hill和Phinn（1993）使用新的高分辨率卫星图像来显示，与“自然”栖息地相比，沼泽植被袋鼠双色在矿山植被的某些串行阶段具有更高的流行率。这些场所是“至少对于一种野生动植物而言，环境发生积极转变的例子”（Hill＆Phinn，  1993年），第11–12页）。他们发现，在针对非人类世界的这种积极的人类干预措施方面缺乏政策，并唤起了人类无能为力地恢复“原始植被覆盖”的无能为力的想法（Hill＆Phinn，  1993，第12页）。涉及规模，这一结论今天仍然适用。对行星时间尺度的这种求助以及对人类和非人类本性的（持续）相互进化的需求表明，对非人类世界进行经验和批判性方法的综合，今天仍然与一代人一样重要。

通过分析38年的航拍时间，Worth（1996）发现由于居民的扩张和采矿，在一个重要的树袋熊（Phascolarctos cinereus [Goldfuss]）栖息地中损失了47％，而当时对它们的栖息地知之甚少优先。当时的动物影响声明“以销毁其他树丛地区足以作为保护区为由，合理销毁了无尾熊栖息地，”声称发展是“短期的栖息地丧失”，而“无尾熊将横穿开放夜间”（Worth，  1996年p。92）。这种合理化缺乏对适当斑块大小和连接走廊的必要性的了解，缺乏通过岛屿生物地理学原理获得的知识，缺乏对考拉生物地理学中经验和证据以及政策和政治手段进行批判性反思的需要。沃思（Worth，1996，第93页）将高风险城市地区的考拉觅食解释为由于“所有考拉都面临自然和人为危险”而使该种群受到威胁的迹象。这些预言并没有改善这种标志性物种的减少，而且自从当局对这样的证据和预言减轻了考拉的国家威胁地位以来，当局没有放心。现在，统一学科内生物地理学研究变得更加关键。

即使有楔形尾的Shearwater等普遍的常见物种，Carter（1997）也显示建筑物和人工步行道将水漏入嵌套的洞穴中，破坏了成功的卵孵化。她指出，关系思维的重要性超越了目标行为者，她指出，无论物种的保护状况和范围如何，这种微观过程“都是在各个尺度上相互联系并融合的”（Carter，  1997，p。 163）。如今，这种类型的观察仍然被评估和管理的行业标准标准所忽略。最近，Pert和Norton（2011）对红色袋鼠（Macropus rufus），邓纳特（Dunnart（Sminthopsis youngsoni和欧洲兔（Oryctolagus cuniculus）显示出在生物区域分析中未发现的土壤中放射性元素和与水的距离的至关重要性。他们的工作的用途是在空间上优先考虑野外工作的投资，并预测干旱和半干旱地区水对非人类的重要性，随着人类世和气候变化的出现，挑战日益增加。

关于更为公开的批判性/文化生物地理学，Head（2000）研究了维多利亚州菲利普岛的萨默兰半岛环境恢复中的一个基本矛盾。小企鹅（夜蛾科小）在夜间的企鹅游行中从捕鱼中返回到洞穴中的洞穴中，成千上万的人观看并拍摄“自然”，而忽略了自己的影响。大量基础设施的成本来自大量游客，而“如果没有菲利普岛的经济健康，则公共政策中永远不会承认企鹅，海豹和羊肉鸟不受干扰的栖息地的权利”。整个国家的旅游业都依赖它们”（Head，  2000年，第 50）。Head使用政府公园和环境文件，重点介绍了用于规划，规范和促进自然/文化双星区域中管理严格的区域的措辞，并指出了土著居民如何置于自然环境中，而其余人类则没有“荒野”的理想要求通过强制性购置和拆除房屋“移走定居者历史的定居部分”（Head，  2000年），第 52）。尽管标牌和“解说中心”的目的明确的教学方法为游客提供了良好的教育体验，但自然和文化却孤立无援，相互联系。她对研究者定位的关注以及“可以被触摸，持有，食用，追逐和卷入的自然”的丧失在本体论上很重要，它要求人们对情感影响和非人类世界的权利有更多的了解（Head，  2000；第51页）。

引入重要的生物地理学的探索说明了非人类作为研究主题而非研究对象的重要性，并建议有必要在经验主义的基础上考虑这些主题。本着泰勒和卡特（2013）已经介绍了代理的概念及其在“有管理的”人海豚相遇中的应用。人类为克服自己的特殊性而进行的斗争以各种方式得到了证明，即海豚机构被否认，抹去，主张和庆祝，但始终在“保护主义”的话语中进行。话语并未明确指出混合角色之间的关系，而是要求人类“允许”海豚发挥作用，并承认海豚可能会被“人类干扰”，从而构成了海豚的行为-终止相遇或接受食物-作为生物反应而非药物反应。少数文献将海豚描述为“发现人类“有趣”，“积极寻找”人类，甚至“利用人类”（Taylor＆Carter，  2013年），第 7）建议对海豚的智力和选择有更彻底的认识。这组作者强调说，海豚的代理权超出了人类的“管理”范围，海豚游客被比喻成来自另一个世界的大使。因此，相遇地点被概念化为种间大使馆，为所有行动者提供适当的礼节和礼仪。但是，占主导地位的范式需要人类对“自然”的“管理”和特权证据研究，例如最小距离和访客人数，最终，人类安全仍然是物种决策中最重要的。

Instone和Sweeney（2014）提出了犬的主观性，同时将人对犬的身体废物（粪便）的照顾与犬体作为废物的处置（通过残忍和安乐死）并列，这两种方法都消除了城市空间中的犬只行为。“有组织地杀死不需要但健康的狗可以稳定城市，使其成为人类的空间，不被狗所挤占，并根据'太多'的狗引起的干扰来建立或重新建立秩序，这将威胁到人类的舒适性和便利性。” （因斯通和斯威尼，  2014年，第 361）。共存空间中的这种暴力关系免除了人类在宠物繁殖中的过失，并通过对狗的悲剧性后果使人类中心主义永存。在关于海豚和狗的研究中，为了建立扁平，相互关系，需要放弃人类控制和“管理”，并且需要经验和批评方法来推进后人类的地球伦理。

Graham（2016）将演员网络理论和组合思维与混合方法（以及传统上与人文和自然地理相关的统一方法）结合起来，强调了马匹，尤其是纯种马，是赛车节和销售节的共同构成者。马匹是绿色的，围栏的围场的田园诗，将新南威尔士州斯康的地区“文化文化”的地方身份和标志性的“风景”共同创造为“最佳繁殖地”和“马的首都”。澳大利亚”（格雷厄姆，  2016年，第216页）。推翻了当地的建筑，这些建筑是“动物或农产品的庆祝活动”（Graham，  2016年，第 217），她说明了马在抵抗大门和骑乘时的行事能力以及游行期间的镇静状态。然而，占主导地位的社会结构将马定位为“获得的财产和不可分割的抽奖卡……但是，这种表示形式是对象，很少关注马的个性，也没有考虑马在其生活结构中所扮演的角色。 [d]世界”（Graham，  2016年，第221页）。集合中的马定位以人类为中心的结构控制着，而不是在“不仅仅是社交网络”中承认地理伦理和非人为因素（Graham，  2016，第221页）。

在转向监管环境的过程中，Morgan和Osborne（2016）重新叙述了昆士兰州规划法所要求的“理性”科学逻辑和证据如何迫使反对Traveston大坝提议的当地活动家放弃其他形式的知识，这些知识是本地的，处在的，体现的，并明确带有价值。积极的社会因素，如社区和地方意识的丧失，连通性，农业生产，社会资本和土著遗产，激发了积极主义者，但在实证主义的计划和政策过程中却无法量化和拒绝。因此，该运动将重点转移到受联邦《 1999年环境保护与生物多样性保护（EPBC）法》保护的三个物种：玛丽河龟（Elusor macrurus），玛丽河鳕鱼（Maccullochella mariensis），尤其是澳大利亚的肺鱼（Neoceratodus forsteri））。国家和国际对肺鱼威胁的科学评估是维权人士提出上诉的唯一依据，最终，英联邦部长否决了州政府禁止水坝的计划。依靠肺鱼的主观性和内在价值是不利的，而且在该领域的研究中，很少看到肺鱼本身。相反，古老的鱼类已成为预期的环境破坏的象征。规划和环境法的主要范式和认识论基于可量化的证据，将龙鱼定为濒危物种，从而使其能够在人类中心主义和实证主义影响评估和批准流程中发挥作用。这种统一的研究必须在一个政治结构化的世界中继续进行。

同样，Le Heron（2019）分析了一些组合，其中包括一种罕见的地方特有的蜗牛（Powelliphanta augusta），其栖息地，一家煤炭开采公司，政府部门，法规和环境非政府组织。在保护部长宣布“我们已决定允许蜗牛移动”以允许采矿，冲突和竞争价值以各种方式使蜗牛定位后，发现，缺乏，被拒绝，被认为是可转移的，受保护的，不具有国家价值的破坏性物体，无声的，栖息地破坏的受害者，在许多地方都存在，包括实验室，繁殖和监测指标，科学分类和易位性（作为一个物种）（请参阅Le Heron，  2019年），第 215，无广告）。物种特征是蜗牛是本土物种，但没有像其他本土或经济生物一样受到重视。蜗牛的栖息地被破坏并被视为可移位和可建造的，但是回想起Hill和Phinn（1993）的行星时间尺度，人类无力再造蜗牛以适应浓密的灌木丛和未受干扰的枯枝落叶，最终导致蜗牛被宣布为功能灭绝（住在实验室但不在野外）。相反，蜗牛保护政治则强调了它的标志性性质，而没有考虑居住在那里的其他物种（一种逆向物种主义），而这又是另一种物种层次结构在人类中的应用：“ P。augusta's物质和话语的困境表明，一开始就非常不愿意将概念化，因为在人类需求和非人类需求之间是对等的（在人类话语中如此）”（Le Heron，  2019年，第227页）。

在本报告所述期间，非人类动物的全球商品化已经增加。例如，Yarwood等人。（2010年）在珀斯皇家展上的食品和纤维展览中记录了近一个世纪的数字和图案。这些数据显示了物种（例如羊驼）和品种的重大变化，反映了农业的传统和创新以及战争，失落和新市场，集约化以及最近的多样性和业余农业等全球因素的影响。他们的文章指出，向大部分城市参与者展示的活体动物的持久吸引力。考虑到对稀有品种（尤其是家禽，狗，山羊等）的重视以及对“最佳展示”竞争者的精心照顾，作者告诫说，相比之下，人群带给人们的印象可能会产生误导适应养殖牲畜的工业化，大规模农业生产主义的商品化现实。

反过来，巴特和泰勒（2018）研究了对（日益加强的）农业和粮食生产的狭义和静态的理解，或什么构成了农村和正宗的（非工业的，在某些情况下是基于土壤的）农业实践，支撑了维多利亚郊区地区的规划过程使肉鸡和鸡蛋生产中的冲突非政治化。在既定的监管逻辑中规定并监管的是工厂农场周围的缓冲区，车辆移动等，以减少邻居的便利感。在发展审批过程中没有听到的是对这种大规模“工厂”农业中对非人类道德或福利的任何呼吁。与上述“肺鱼运动”一样，“非人类动物福利”在正式计划流程之外也被辩论，但监管机构将此类讨论重新定向给了福利或环境保护机构。代表鸡只的倡导实际上是沉默的，当提出时，对达成令人满意的计划共识是多余的。尽管在强力肉鸡系统中，所有孵化场中有一半的雏鸡（雄性）固有地被宰杀，但在高效的商业模式下不可避免地存在“浪费”和造成人员伤亡的情况，这种现象足以使多达一百万只禽类商品化。而福尔摩斯（尽管在集约化肉鸡系统中孵化场中有一半的雏鸡（雄性）固有地被宰杀，但这种结果还是存在的，尽管这种肉鸡在高效的商业模式下不可避免地会造成“浪费”和人员伤亡，但将多达一百万只鸡商品化为乌有。而福尔摩斯（尽管在强力肉鸡系统中，所有孵化场中有一半的雏鸡（雄性）固有地被宰杀，但在高效的商业模式下不可避免地存在“浪费”和造成人员伤亡的情况，这种现象足以使多达一百万只禽类商品化。而福尔摩斯（2019）特别探索了在特定奶牛场，牛肉，马和鱼场中农村居住和转型的路径依赖过程，母牛以人类为中心，目的是向农业综合企业说明在小农场雇用``人''所需的人数—小型农场的衰落通常会显示规模较小或低产的牧群，其中奶牛数量是经济结构化世界中人类“成功”的指标。

最近，Schouten等人。（2020）在大规模伐木和栖息地退化的背景下研究了印度尼西亚松巴瓦的土著社区的蜂蜜狩猎，其中来自目标种的亚洲蜜蜂（Apis dorsata）平均每年为举报人提供超过三分之二的现金收入。玉米和水稻的高生产成本（政府倡导）确保了狩猎蜂蜜的更大利润。当前的一些采伐方式威胁着蜂箱的生存能力，但是公司（非法）采伐寄主树是一个更大的危险。具体来说，猎人先切掉育雏梳子，然后杀死鸡蛋，幼虫和，然后再将它们装满蜂蜜。猎人几乎没有注意到收获对蜂箱生存能力的影响，对女王的威胁以及对几乎所有储存的食物供养未来蜜蜂种群的影响。该研究指出，狩猎社区显示“缺乏对A. dorsata的生态数据特别是关于可持续的收成水平”（Schouten等人，  2020年，第73页）；这是一个重要的警告，以免经常假设人们拥有健全的/有弹性的/知识丰富的本地知识以及与非人类他人的包容性，非人类中心的关系，更重要的是，需要整合经验性和关键性生物地理学。

最后，鱼类和其他动物已成为人权和有争议的对象，在多个尺度上的复杂法律湖景中（例如生物多样性价值和捕鱼生计），其主观性不服（Gillespie，  2016）。与Gillespie一样，O'Gorman（2016）也探索了澳大利亚鹈鹕（Pelecanus conspicillatus）在政府批准的南澳大利亚库隆繁殖地大规模杀害鹈鹕期间，共同制定“法律”和“空间”。这场冲突涉及当地渔民，原住民传统的鸡蛋采集者，当地尤其是都市鸟类学家，公务员以及法律起草者和立法者，他们基于1920年代初期对鹈鹕和其他本土动物的新兴科学知识而纠结于空间，法律，经济和保护/科学因素鸟类种类。这项研究表明，在鹈鹕的保护和捕捞业有害生物的定位上存在许多矛盾之处，通过将筑巢岛出租给鸟类学会获得了明显的利益冲突解决方案。鹈鹕通过“适应性”并不断努力繁殖来发挥其作用，尽管有包括拉姆萨尔（Ramsar）保护在内的最新法律，其人口数量仍在继续下降。与上一代研究人员一样（例如，那些预测考拉种群减少以及甚至更广泛物种的问题的研究人员），将我们必须提供给后人类世界的一切结合起来的时间也很短。

总而言之，几十年前，Wace（1967，p。24 ）认为地理学家已经很好地理解了（共同）进化的时间尺度，并敏锐地研究了“人类的进化和出现及其对生物圈其他部分的巨大影响”。 ……（以及那个）……对许多分类单元范围的历史解释必然会越来越依赖于“文化记录”，尤其是“文化动物地理学”。

这个虚拟问题的目的是强调地理学家将所有经验和关键生物地理知识和方法集中在一起的迫切需求。在人文地理和自然地理之间仍然存在鸿沟，这可能反映了结构性鸿沟，而不是实际鸿沟，只要有证据表明在学术的各个子学科之间以及在仅被视为地理学家的个人之间建立了桥梁（无进一步资格）。需要鼓励自然/定量生物地理学家和重要/文化生物地理学家在专门设计的研究和写作团队中进行协作。在收集公众对清单的支持，为听证会提供证据以及评估预期的气候变化，丛林大火，城市化，和其他问题。我们还需要关注动物权利，福利，主观主义或对非人类动物暴力行为日益增加的世界各地的代理的学者。学科领导者，编辑，研究资助团队和个人可以追求尊重“两种文化”的融合，从而根据当前和即将来临的人类世纪建立一个后人类世界。大学和地理部门可以在诸如生态学，规划或政治学之类的课程中以及地理学本身中规定生物地理课程。这些课程本身需要将关键方法与经典生物地理学模式和过程（例如分布，范围，扩散，殖民化，进化和灭绝）的研究相结合。例如，人类作为动物，通过其传播，范围扩展，领土殖民，物种灭绝的原因以及这种物种在世界上占统治地位的伦理学需要进行严格的审查。作为头（2012年，第172和176页）认为：“从不同方向来看，在人类地理学中的后人文主义方法中存在着相当大的趋同性（如果仍然与术语相矛盾的话），而在自然地理学和古生态学中人类世的概念化……将后人文主义的视角应用于更自然的生物地理学具有广阔的前景。” 因此，通过生物地理学将自然地理和人文地理结合在一起的巨大希望已经开始，但是在这一努力中的临界质量仍然是紧迫的问题。