Recording reefs with darwinian questions: historical studies on the brazilian northeast coast

Abstract

The objective of this research is to gather empirical information to emphasize the insertion of the Northeast Coast of Brazil into the North-American Darwinian discussion, especially the zoology of its coral reefs. References onsubject are found in descriptions produced by the Stanford Expedition to Brazil, 1911. The Expedition was directedby John Branner, geologist whoworked for a long time with David Jordan, zoologist at Stanford. They worked with models of speciation of species and their scientific practices included a variety of methods of natural sciences: biogeographic records, systematic taxonomy (distribution laws), ecological perspectives and collaborative research (biology and geology). This expedition recorded the biogeography of the marine life to understand the role of the isolation on the divergence of species characteristics separated by a natural barrier. The taxonomy developed by these studies involves a knowledge that has acted as a bridge between the old-fashioned natural history and a modern field system. This kind of fieldworkintegrated the descriptive activity with qualitative models. Today, the results of the Expedition are reflected in many scientific institutions in North America including biological collections and bibliographies. These indications are important biological records about the Brazilian reefs and they are indicative of the relevant scientific Darwinian work made by this Expedition in a period of the “eclipse” of the Darwinian Theory. Thus, we attempt to analyze all these references as a whole, placing emphasis on both the practical science and the history documented in the records of Brazilian coral reefs.