[Taxacom] More confused biogeography?

[John Grehan]

In the list of papers highlighted by Fiona Williams is one titled "Revision
of Trassedia (Hymenoptera: Ceraphronidae), an Evolutionary Relict With an
Unusual Distribution"

This is quite a strange title as there is nothing unusual about the
distribution at all. It is actually quite mundane. Also, the authors
indicate its mundanity by recognizing it as a Gondwanic distribution (which
it is in the sense of an Atlantic-western Indian Ocean range).

The authors also make the following assertion "However, ample studies show
that the geographical distributions of numerous organisms with Gondwanic
distributions were driven by trans-oceanic dispersal, challenging the
traditional vicariance paradigm (Upchurch 2008)."

This is a bit of an uncritical misrepresentation (albeit unwitting) of
Upchurch who does no such thing (the claim that it demonstrates ample
studies that "show" numerous organisms were driven by trans-oceanic
dispersal. Rather Upchurch reads dispersal into biogeography, including the
'big lie' about so called molecular clock dating. The widespread failure of
many biogeographers to acknowledge the truth of molecular dates as minimal
only continues to be one of the biggest scandals to permeate the discipline
today.

John Grehan