Asteraceae and connections

[John Grehan]

>Heads, M. (1999). Vicariance biogeography and terrane tectonics in the
>South Pacific: analysis of the genus Abrotanella (Compositae). Biological
>Journal of the Linnean Society 67, 391-432.

I wasn't aware of this paper and am grateful for its posting by Mike Crisp.
While the title has "vicariance biogeography" the paper is not the
cladistic approach, but an application of spatial correlation between
biological and geological patterns for this group of plants. Heads shows
the spatial correlation of taxa with plate margins, transform faults, and
fracture zones as well as a variety of geological processes. He shows how
the biogeography of Abrotanella does not support the notion of areas such
as New Guinea, Australia, and New Guinea, and South America as simple areas
of endemism, but that they are polyphyletic entities.

This paper might prove of interest to those on this list interested in the
potential of panbiogeographic applications for biogeographic analysis,
particularly the use of spatial biological and geological correlation which
is a technique that is not promoted in dispersalist or vicariance cladistic
methods.

John Grehan