[Taxacom] Dispersal example

[Michael Heads]

Hi Pierre,

You write: 'I wonder what are exactly the differences between vicariance
biogeography and panbiogeography maybe the rejection of geological
arguments by the latter...'.

In fact, panbiogeography engages much more with geology than traditional
vicariance biogeography does. E.g. Nelson & Platnick's (1981) standard
text on vicariance biogeography has long discussions about the possible
cladistic relationships among Borneo, Java and Sumatra. In contrast,
panbiogeography (like geology) does not use geographic areas as a priori
entities and instead looks at distributions  and tectonics, which turn out
to deconstruct Borneo, Sumatra and Java.

Panbiogeography has introduced many geological concepts to biogeography.
For example, it was the first to look at terranes in relationship to
distributions, in New Zealand in the 1980s. This is now a standard approach
in work on the Mediterranean. In another example, panbiogeography has
studied disjunctions along transform (strike-slip) faults. In another,
recent example, I stressed the significance of the Musicians Seamounts off
Hawaii. These are now known to be flat-topped (eroded to sea-level) and so
were former islands. I don't know of any other biogeographic work that has
mentioned these.

Other examples of geological structures where the potential biogeographic
effects were first examined by panbiogeography include the accreted
terrane/craton boundary in western Colombia, the accreted terrane/craton
boundary in New Guinea, the central African rift system (not the Great
Rift), and the Lebombo monocline in southern Africa.

Michael




On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 8:05 AM, Pierre Deleporte <
pierre.deleporte at univ-rennes1.fr> wrote:

>
> agreed, but this part is not an exclusive property of panbiogeography,
> it is a basic methodological concept of standard "vicariance" biogeoraphy
>
> from the moment when panbiogeographers make use of phylogenetic
> relationships
> (and not just distributional patterns of "taxa" connected by "track" lines)
> I wonder what are exactly the differences
> between vicariance biogeography and panbiogeography
>
> maybe the rejection of geological arguments by the latter,
> while Nelson and Platnick (1981 - Systematics and biogeography:
> cladistic and vicariance)
> explicitely stated that biogeographical patterns are just patterns,
> that should be explained via the integration of geological considerations
>
> Nelson and Platnick even underlined that some patterns
> can be produced via vicariance as well as via coordinated dispersal over
> barriers,
> which should somewhat temperate the vicariance-dispersal dispute...
>
> best,
> Pierre
>
> Le 20/04/2014 20:41, Curtis Clark a ?crit :
> > On 2014-04-17 4:26 PM, John Grehan wrote:
> >> ...dispersalist have
> >> for a long time asserted that chance dispersal can account for any
> >> distribution.
> > Thus dispersal cannot be falsified. It only serves as an explanation
> > when all falsifiable alternatives have been falsified. IMO
> > panbiogeography has a lot of unnecessary baggage (orthogenesis being a
> > major one), but this part makes sense.
> >
>
>
> --
> Pierre DELEPORTE
> UMR6552 EthoS
> Universit? Rennes 1
> CNRS
> Station Biologique
> 35380 PAIMPONT
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> fax (+33) 02 99 61 81 88
>
>
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-- 
Dunedin, New Zealand.

My recent books:

*Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics.* 2012. University of California
Press, Berkeley. www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn—80520271968

*Biogeography of Australasia:  A molecular analysis*. 2014. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge. www.cambridge.org/9781107041028