1) The historic/geologic setting for West Indian diversification
a) What types of connections previously existed among islands and to the mainland? (Thorpe, Iturralde-Vinent, MacPhee, Hedges, Mann)
b) How old are contemporary islands? (Thorpe, Donovan, Mann, Iturralde-Vinent, MacPhee)
c) What are the effects of late Tertiary cooling and ice age cycles on climate and geography? (Donovan, Graham)
d) What has the role of volcanism been in the formation of West Indian islands?

2) Evolutionary perspectives on West Indian island biogeography
a) Origins of the West Indian flora/fauna (Perkins, Donovan, Hollocher, Glor, Crews, Ricklefs, Hedges, Santiago-Valentin)
i) How and when did colonists arrive in the region? (Perkins, Hollocher, Glor, Crews)
ii) Are the West Indies strictly a sink for continental colonists, or are they also a source for new continental diversity?
b) Patterns of dispersal and vicariance (Perkins, Donovan, Glor, Santiago-Valentin)
i) Are common vicariant events shared among taxa? (Perkins, Crews, Glor)
ii) Can shared routes of over-water dispersal be detected among taxa? (Perkins, Crews, Glor)
c) Patterns of endemism and in situ diversification (Ricklefs, Losos)
i) At what scale does speciation occur in the West Indies? (Thorpe, Hollocher)
ii) Do different groups exhibit similar patterns of endemism? (Thorpe, Hollocher)

3) The formation and loss of West Indian species
a) What processes contribute to speciation within and among islands? (Perkins, Thorpe, Malhotra, Schneider)
b) What factors result in the extinction of taxa? (Perkins)

4) The evolution of West Indian communities (Perkins, Ricklefs, Losos)
a) How are West Indian communities different from those on the mainland? (Donovan)
b) How have communities been assembled over time? (Donovan)