Geographical phylogeny

[John Grehan]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Taxacom Discussion List [mailto:TAXACOM at LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU] On
> Behalf Of Karl Magnacca
> How did you do the geographical phylogeny?  By taking adjacent or
> parapatric species as being most closely related?

I saw this subject mentioned in one of the earlier postings. The idea of
using geographic information to predict phylogeny was explored by
Croizat in a number of cases. Croizat's method was to use geographic
proximity and main massings as criteria by which one could predict
phylogenetic relationships from spatial data. An example was a
geographic 'test' of Ficus which appeared to have a close relationship
between members in the west Pacific and America. Croizat argued that the
relationship was not trans-Pacific because of the biogeographic of Ficus
as a whole. This proposal received subsequent corroboration in matching
insect relationships. Several examples are cited in the 1999
panbiogeography book (chapter Mapping the trees of life). One of
approaches was formalized as the vicariance criterion established by
Hennig whereby adjacent vicariant taxa may be predicted to be more
closely related to each other than to another taxon elsewhere. On this
basis I predicted a sistergroup relationship between two vicariant ghost
moth genera and this prediction later received support from
morphological studies by another researcher.

John Grehan