Molecular Panbiogeography of the Tropics
Michael Heads
Abstract
Molecular studies have revealed highly ordered geographic patterns in plant and animal groups, and this book discusses examples from the tropics. During evolution, phases of community immobilism that lead to allopatric differentiation alternate with phases of mobilism that lead to range expansion and overlap of taxa. Both phases are caused by geological and climatic factors rather than group-specific factors such as ecology or means of dispersal. In primates, the endemism of high-level taxa in tropical America (New World monkeys) and Madagascar (lemurs) is attributed to Gondwana breakup, while ... More
Molecular studies have revealed highly ordered geographic patterns in plant and animal groups, and this book discusses examples from the tropics. During evolution, phases of community immobilism that lead to allopatric differentiation alternate with phases of mobilism that lead to range expansion and overlap of taxa. Both phases are caused by geological and climatic factors rather than group-specific factors such as ecology or means of dispersal. In primates, the endemism of high-level taxa in tropical America (New World monkeys) and Madagascar (lemurs) is attributed to Gondwana breakup, while the extensive overlap of clades in South America, Africa, and Asia may have been caused by range expansion during Cretaceous marine transgressions. In the central Pacific, former high islands of the Cretaceous (now seamounts and atolls) may have been important source areas for the biotas of the current islands. The integration of earth history, biogeography, and ecology proposed here leads to an alternative view of evolution, in which groups are much older than suggested by the fossil record and fossil-calibrated molecular clocks. The book concludes with a critique of adaptation by selection, based on biogeography and recent work in genetics.
Keywords:
biogeography,
biodiversity,
geology,
primates,
evolution,
ecology,
vicariance,
dispersal,
tectonics,
adaptation
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2012 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780520271968 |
Published to California Scholarship Online: September 2012 |
DOI:10.1525/california/9780520271968.001.0001 |