Biogeographic memory

[P.Hovenkamp]

At 05:28 PM 9/7/01 -0400, you wrote:

>>As a matter of fact - for the ratites the discussion in the text deals
>>with "main massings" based on numbers of families. Supposing that families
>>are monophyletic, that does bring in a little phylogeny. Not much.
>
>
>There was more discussion of phylogeny in Craw's earlier work, but then
>whether that's 'enough' for anyone I leave to individual preference.
If it was there, why not deal with it in the book? By downplaying the role
of phylogeny in the book you apparently left out an essential element of
the method...

>>In this case - a scheme in which only four baselines are allowed.
>>If a track is not Atlantic, Pacific or Southern - well, then it must be
>>Indian Ocean.
>
>These, along with the Northern and Southern oceans are the four major
>tectonic basins so if one
>is interested in the spatial relationships of distributions to those basins
>then that's the
>baseline reference. It does not preclude others

The way you arrive at an Indian Ocean baseline by eliminating 3 other
options is valid only if other options are precluded.

>>This way one runs the risk of ignoring the evidence (plainly there in the
>>examples) that there are different general patterns crossing the Indian
>>Ocean basis in different ways.
>
>Of course, and these can be recognized as different standard tracks with
>overlapping or nested
>localities - still within a common baseline with respect to a particular
>ocean basin. Even Croizat's (1958)
>map shows different tracks across common ocean basins.

Exactly. So why restrict your interest to only 4 ocean basins?

>>As far as I can make out, it is also a long way from Croizat's approach -
>>Croizat plainly refused to believe anything that was contradicted by the
>>distribution patterns he observed.
>
>Not sure what the point is here.

Roughly this:
That under the name Panbiogeography you seem to be advocating an approach
that is both in method and in general purpose different from what Croizat
termed panbiogeography.
Thus, on basis of Croizat's panbiogeography, there seem to have been two
developments: one towards "Panbiogeography" in the sense of Craw, Grehan &
Heads, the other towards vicariance biogeography, integrating Croizat's
approach with explicit phylogenetic data. I think the latter is the more
interesting development.

>>Croizat's volatile temper and his peculiar style have a lot to answer for.
>
>I don' know about his 'temper' as I never met him. As for his style, its
>not all that
>peculiar. Seems to be a bit of a red herring. If one were to pick on
>Croizat's 'temper'
>then one might also pick on some of his opponents who seemed to be quite'
>nasty (e.g. the rumors spread about Croizat being in an insane asylum).

I was not trying to "pick on" Croizat - merely trying to explain the
impopularity of and even downright hostility towards his writings. As for
the peculiarity of his style - I leave that to individual opinion.

Peter Hovenkamp