Department of Ornithology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, 10034, NY, USA.
Cladistics. 2024 Dec;40(6):653-662. doi: 10.1111/cla.12598. Epub 2024 Sep 28.
Historical biogeography is the study of geographic distributions of taxa through space and time. Over the last 50 years, several methods have been proposed to reconstruct these histories. However, despite their particularities, conceptually they have been most often derived from the reconstruction of area relationships. Here we advocate that area cladograms lack explanatory power and that biogeography needs to move towards a more mechanistic approach. We discuss the ontological problems related to areas of endemism and their validity as biogeographic units. Specifically, we propose that areas of endemism are not discrete historical entities and that area-based analyses are inappropriate for analytical biogeography. Instead, we suggest that biogeographic analyses should focus on those spatial-geographic elements that cause diversification, namely barriers. We discuss how barriers have more discrete boundaries in space and time than do areas of endemism, which allows the identification of homologous units and the recovery of vicariant events. Reconstructing the history of vicariant events results in a better understanding of spatial evolution within a biota because barrier formation is the relevant causal mechanism of diversification. We end by acknowledging the largely ignored views of Peter Hovenkamp and his conceptual contributions to developing a mechanistic biogeography.
历史生物地理学是通过时间和空间研究分类单元的地理分布。在过去的 50 年中，已经提出了几种方法来重建这些历史。然而，尽管它们具有特殊性，但从概念上讲，它们大多源自对区域关系的重建。在这里，我们主张区系发生树缺乏解释力，生物地理学需要向更机械的方法发展。我们讨论了与特有区相关的本体论问题及其作为生物地理单位的有效性。具体来说，我们提出特有区不是离散的历史实体，基于区域的分析不适合分析生物地理学。相反，我们建议生物地理分析应侧重于引起多样化的那些空间地理要素，即障碍。我们讨论了障碍在空间和时间上的边界比特有区更加离散，这允许识别同源单元并恢复隔离事件。重建隔离事件的历史可以更好地理解生物群内的空间演化，因为障碍形成是多样化的相关因果机制。最后，我们承认彼得·霍芬坎普（Peter Hovenkamp）的观点在很大程度上被忽视了，他的观点对发展机械生物地理学做出了概念上的贡献。
