[Taxacom] North America, Central America + S.E. Asia sister taxa

[John Grehan]

This observation points out the reality of Pacific patterns. The
NG/Aust-C America distribution is relatively unambiguous with respect to
the main massings being immediately adjacent to the Pacific basin. In my
Galapagos study I found the saltwort genus Batis to also be in north
Queensland/Papua NG as well as Central America/Baja
California/Galapagos/Caribbean/Atlantic Brazil.


The central USA-SW Australia pattern is less unambiguous as it is not
obvious which ocean basin is involved. Further outgroup comparisons
might help. Also in my Galapagos study I found the genus Pitnus recorded
from the Caribbean/Central America/W Mexico/SW USA/Galapagos and
southern/SW Australia. 

Trans Pacific patterns are almost beyond counting, being so frequent and
taxonomically broad.

John Grehan

-----Original Message-----
From: Don.Colless at csiro.au [mailto:Don.Colless at csiro.au]
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2011 11:28 PM
To: John Grehan
Subject: RE: [Taxacom] North America, Central America + S.E. Asia sister
taxa

As a minor contribution to this thread, may I record the genus
Enicoscolus, with a species in Papua-New Guinea and North Queensland and
the rest in central America. I cannot conceive this as due to
convergence. There is another genus, name forgotten for the moment, with
a species in central USA and one in SW Australia. The identity was
confirmed  by a very surprised - and eminent - North American Dipterist.

Donald H. Colless
CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences
GPO Box 1700
Canberra 2601
don.colless at csiro.au
tuz li munz est miens envirun
________________________________________
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of John Grehan
[jgrehan at sciencebuff.org]
Sent: 21 December 2011 02:03
To: TAXACOM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] North America, Central America + S.E. Asia sister
taxa

Kip,

Thank you for the clarification. I guess I am puzzled about your
referring to it as a 'peculiar' distribution, at least with respect to a
taxon existing in South East Asia and the New World since these types
are patterns are commonplace and are spatially diagnostic as being
trans-Pacific.

Admittedly, many such groups may lack a rigorous phylogenetic analysis,
but on the other hand I suspect many do.

John Grehan

-----Original Message-----
From: Kipling (Kip) Will [mailto:kipwill at berkeley.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2011 9:55 AM
To: John Grehan
Cc: TAXACOM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] North America, Central America + S.E. Asia sister
taxa

John,

We have a group of carabid beetles that includes a very well supported
clade with one lineage restricted to the area of roughly Myanmar to
Vietnam and the other in North America (southern Canada) south to
Central America (Panama). This strikes me as a peculiar distribution and

so the first step to understand its significance (if any) is to look for

similar patterns of phylogeny and distribution.

Sister groups, by definition, have some useful properties, e.g. have
been shown to share a most recent common ancestor and are lineages of
the same age. Therefore they provide us with comparable evolutionary
entities.

I am specifically looking for sister groups since taxa s.l. may or may
not have an associated phylogeny and so a family, for example, might (or

might not) just be a group of convenience. Even worse, it may be a
paraphyletic construct that excludes some descendents leaving only those

that happen to be in the areas of interest. The distributional pattern
based on a paraphyletic grade would be incomplete and therefore
misleading. Of course if the taxon has been shown to be monophyletic,
that is it contains all the decedents of a common ancestor, and its
extant members are only from North America, Central America and S.E.
Asia, even if the internal relationships have not been resolved, it is
of interest to me.

Considering other patterns of phylogeny and distribution that involve
these areas, more widely distributed taxa and extinct organisms may be
necessary to develop the full picture.

best,
Kip



On 12/19/2011 5:56 PM, John Grehan wrote:
> Just 'sister groups' or what about the same taxon such as genus or
> family etc. What's the significance of sister groups you are looking
at?
>
> John Grehan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Kipling (Kip)

> Will
> Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 4:59 PM
> To: TAXACOM
> Subject: [Taxacom] North America, Central America + S.E. Asia sister
> taxa
>
> Dear All,
> I am looking for examples of taxa with demonstrated sister groups in
> which one is endemic to all or part of South East Asia and the other
to
> all or part of North and/or Central America. Any citations or clues
> appreciated.
>
> best,
> Kip
>
>


--

Contact info:

Kipling W. Will
Associate Professor/Insect Systematist
Associate Director,Essig Museum of Entomology

send specimens to:
Essig Museum of Entomology
1101 Valley Life Sciences Building, #4780 University of California,
Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720-4780

letter mail to:
130 Mulford Hall
ESPM Dept.- Organisms & Environment Div.
University of California
Berkeley, California 94720

phone 510-642-XXXX
fax 510-643-5438

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