From the Editor My curiosity was immediately piqued when I reviewed the initial submission of this monograph. I saw that some old “rules” were being invoked, namely those developed by Bergmann, Allen, and Gloger. I was interested to see where the author was going here because I have noted that broad changes have been occurring in how ecologists deal with these rules over the past 100 years or so. That is, as a student some 40 years ago I was expected to know the history, rationale, and applications of all of the “rules” and the rule makers; they were certainly fair game for course material and preliminary examinations. During my graduate training the debate over autecology versus competition as the driver in forming groups of species, as well as the growing interest in community ecology, was intensifying. What I witnessed during the intervening years was a basic shift in teaching, away from autecology to community ecology, and a concomitant lack of teaching of the old rules; they had somehow become archaic and, I guess, passé. That is, I have found that few graduate students are well schooled in the rules, and many cannot even discuss them in a coherent manner. But times change, and recently there has been a general shifting back toward autecological explanations for the distribution, abundance, and behaviors of many species; the old rules are back (including, especially, limiting factors). In this monograph, VanderWerf focuses on the three major ecogeographic rules—Bergmann’s, Allen’s, and Gloger’s—that have been used to explore evolutionary ecology, biogeography, and functional morphology. He found that morphological variation in elepaios was clinal because there are few dispersal barriers. His results did not support subspecies designation within the Hawaii Elepaio, but he showed that morphological and underlying genetic variation was important. These results have direct conservation implications because elepaios with varying phenotypes need to be conserved to maintain evolutionary potential and, especially, the ability to adapt to climate change. This monograph and Ornithological Monographs No. 67 (Avian Subspecies, edited by Kevin Winker and Susan Haig) have some similar messages, in that regardless of formal designation of subspecies, there are groups of individuals that show adaptations to specific suites of environmental features that warrant our attention (e.g., ecotypic variation). As reviewed by VanderWerf, similar patterns of morphological variation have been shown to occur in many species of birds, mammals, and reptiles. The degree of variation shown in the elepaio was unusual in that it occurred over a small geographic area, apparently because of the steep terrain and associated substantial changes in environmental conditions. These results indicate that many interesting research opportunities will exist throughout the world where environmental conditions change quickly over short distances. This monograph thus has lessons that extend far beyond the Hawaiian Islands and elepaios. Michael L. Morrison vii

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