[Taxacom] Dispersal... again

[Michael Heads]

Hi Karl,
?
You say: 'Vicariance is ho-hum because it's how things mostly go'. But for the Hawaiian biota?I only know of a single?paper in the last 50 years supporting a vicariance model. Every other paper in?a huge literature supports the same?model: chance dispersal.?Even for Madagascar, the vast majority of studies supports chance dispersal.
?
Michael

Wellington, New Zealand.


My papers on biogeography are at: http://tiny.cc/RiUE0


________________________________
From: Karl Magnacca <kmagnacca at wesleyan.edu>
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Sent: Thursday, 27 October 2011 8:27 AM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Dispersal... again

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011, John Grehan wrote:
> To play the worn our record again, dispersal is very popular among
> biogeographers because most biogeographers are not interested in
> analyzing the spatial structure of differentiated entities and
> getting to know the tedious details of distribution (tedious because
> they are so often repetitive). With centers of origin and dispersal
> one is freed up from reading the records of life to make up whatever
> center of origin and dispersal story for an individual group or
> situation without having to worry about those nagging spatial
> incongruities.

Actually, if you remove the anti-dispersal aspersions and spin, in a
sense this is true.? Dispersal is popular because it happens, but
relatively rarely, so it's interesting when it does.? It's what
*creates* incongruities.? Vicariance is ho-hum because it's how
things mostly go.? One more Gondwanan distribution?? Whoop-dee-doo. 
Lizards crossing the Atlantic *after* the split?? Much more notable.

Karl


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