Antarctica and biogeography

[John Grehan]

At 09:54 PM 4/2/04 -0600, Ken Kinman wrote:
>  In much the same way, it does not sit well with me when he fails to
> include Antarctica on his pangeographic maps for groups that probably
> occurred there before Antarctica froze over.  That they no longer occur
> there does not justify completely leaving Antarctica off such maps.  Such
> approaches just feel to me like wearing blinders and thus hamper useful
> speculation where it is needed.

Panbiogeography deals with empirical rather than imagined data. Thus,
Antarctica, like any other location, is not included in a track when there
it is not part of the distribution records for a group. Thus, a track
linking locations in the North Island of New Zealand, Hawaii, and Costa
Rica for example, obviously represents the current distribution for a group
which may have also present in western North America, western South
America, Australia, Japan, China, and Antarctica. In fact one might predict
that these locations are more likely for the ancestral distribution than
India or Africa. However, at this point including any of these localities
of absence would not be any more informative for the track of the currently
known distribution records.

John Grehan