[Taxacom] panbiogeography

Sun Jul 5 19:12:13 CDT 2009

Dear Michael,

Earlier (June 28) you contributed some very interesting observations:

"Recently, I spent 5 years working on the tiny Lesser Antillean island of
Montserrat. The geologic history of the island and region seem pretty
clear, it is a volcano in a line of volcanoes.  However, the more I
learned about its fauna, the more weird anomalies I found that made it
more Greater Antillean than any of its sister islands.  Attempts to remove
this problem by more sampling of surrounding islands (hyp: the patterns
observed are due to under-sampling of intervening islands) did not work. 
It just reinforced the oddities.

The only answer seemed that there was something unknown that made
Montserrat's history different from the surrounding islands, that
something being totally beyond current geologic understanding.

This lead me to reexamine Panbiogeography, thinking maybe I had missed
something the first 2 times.  I reread what I could stomach of the
literature (passing on a reread of Croizat himself)". 

response from MH:

I'm not sure why you passed on Croizat (!), but the only detailed panbiogeogaphic analyses of the West Indies that I know of are the ones in Croizat's (fully indexed) books.  
   A large section of Principia Botanica vol. 2 (1961) (from memory at least a hundred pages) is devoted to a statistical analysis of the whole West Indian beetle fauna that may be of interest to you. Although it is based on Blackwelder's rather dated treatment (is there a more recent one?) I've found many of the ideas useful.   
   Chapter 7 of Croizat's Panbiogeography (Vol. 1, 1958) deals with distribution in the West Indies. He notes (p. 624-5, discussing birds): '...insofar as the northern Lesser Antilles (i.e. the 'horn' Montserrat/Saba in the west and Antigua/Anguilla in the east) a 'crossing' takes place altogether mysterious in the light of current geography'. It seems that Croizat, like yourself, found the biogeography of Montserrat quite intriguing... 
   In his book on America (Biogeografia analitica y sintetica de las Americas, 1975) Chapter 20 deals with the Antilles. Again, just one example: on p. 484 Croizat notes (in a discussion of Crustacea) that 'Montserrat media en disyuncion entre Santa Cruz [ i.e. S. Croix] y Dominica'. For a similar outer arc to the west, see Coereba (the most abundant bird in the West Indies - Lack, 1976) which also shows the Montserrat - St. Croix disjunction.  
   This important 'track' out to the west is surely related to the disjunction you noted between Montserrat and the Greater Antilles - I think you're an excellent panbiogeographer!       

   You wrote that 'The geologic history of the island and region seem pretty
clear, it is a volcano in a line of volcanoes'. But while the exposed *stratigraphy* (the current island) is clear enough, the underlying *tectonics* are not. In cases such as this the old distributions 'floating' on young strata may indicate the presence of former arcs and other geological structures that have not been preserved in the rock record. The first thing to do is to check and analyse the biogeographic patterns - especially the 'anomalies' - just as you've been doing. These can then be compared with patterns in other groups that are especially well-documented, which usually means birds. 
   For example, Terborgh et al. (1978) noted that 20 of the 24 bird species known to inhabit the low, dry island of Antigua also occur on the high, wet island of Montserrat and 'An historical rather than ecological perspective probably offers a more satisfying explanation for the composition of the avifauna of the N Lesser Antilles'.  
   In the best known insects, the butterflies, Davies & Bermingham (2002) discussed Heliconius charithonia of S USA to NW South America. The clades are: 
   1. Jamaica – basal (sister to the rest). 
   2. Ecuador. 
   3. S Florida, Cuba, N Lesser Antilles: Montserrat/St Kitts. Note how this last connection avoids Puerto Rico/Hispaniola, just like your beetle pattern!
   4. Puerto Rico/Hispaniola, Bahamas, mainland (Florida, Panama, Ecuador). 
   The authors note that ‘There are no obvious ecological reasons why H. charithonia should be absent from the Lesser Antilles south of Montserrat, and distance is clearly not a sufficient barrier [I agree] because H. charithonia only recently colonized Montserrat from Puerto Rico'. I disagree - the Montserrat populations are related to those of Cuba/Florida, not those of Puerto Rico, just as your own observations of 'weird anomalies' revealed!      

Michael Heads

Wellington, New Zealand.

My papers on biogeography are at: http://tiny.cc/RiUE0

--- On Mon, 7/6/09, mivie at montana.edu <mivie at montana.edu> wrote:

> From: mivie at montana.edu <mivie at montana.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] panbiogeography
> To: "John Grehan" <jgrehan at sciencebuff.org>
> Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Date: Monday, July 6, 2009, 7:19 AM
> > I put the keyword in the subject
> line as a courtesy to those who find
> > this subject irritating so they can hit the delete
> button (so I do not
> > expect to see any complaints posted). The rest is for
> those who are
> > curious or like to see opinions for the sake of it.
> 
> Of course you should expect to see objections, there is a
> whole listserver
> for this topic, and THIS ONE IS NOT IT. You continue to not
> understand
> logic, and put forth ridiculous assertions like that that
> show you do not
> understand cause-effect relationships.  This example
> is indicative of your
> entire approach.
> 
> In addition, you were politely asked to stop, but
> refused.  You are really
> not after anything but attention, as the only "empirical"
> evidence you
> want to recognize is what supports your pre-conceived
> opinions.
> 
> As for Cracraft, you justify my pugnaciousness by your
> inherently flawed
> and self-serving lack of logic: You confuse the polite with
> the weak!  So
> much for wasting time even trying to be polite -- you will
> just misuse the
> courtesy.
> 
> And, about your disappointment in not getting to debate my
> interesting
> biodiversity information, I subscribe to the dictum "do not
> throw your
> pearls before swine."  You will just revel in the
> attention, and never get
> the logic errors inherent in your method. My reserve saves
> you from
> looking bad, me from being disgusted, and everyone else
> from wearing the
> "delete" off the key.
> 
> Michael Ivie
> 
> 
> 
> >
> >
> >
> > I noticed that Michael Ivie managed to express his
> irritation and then
> > duck out of further discussion when it suited him -
> nothing inherently
> > wrong with that I suppose although it seemed that he
> has some
> > interesting biogeographic observations that could have
> been examined
> > further, and Michael did try to offer some empirical
> considerations for
> > Ivie to consider and discuss further.
> >
> >
> >
> > I took a look again at Cracraft's 2000 review that
> Ivie quoted. The
> > review is probably understandable from one who is
> taking a phylogenetic
> > approach to biogeographic analysis, but overall his
> criticisms
> > notwithstanding, he said the book should be read. As
> to the critiques,
> > mostly they are expressions of a view, not any kind of
> substantiated
> > argument. Some are more about criticizing what was not
> covered in the
> > 1999 book, and that is inevitable in a book of a
> finites size and
> > purpose.
> >
> >
> >
> > Specifically on the comments listed by Ivie:
> >
> >
> >
> > "A major weakness of their presentation and the method
> is the
> > oversimplistic interpretation of generalized tracks
> and of the
> > geological events that are assumed to cause them."
> >
> >
> >
> > No empirical evidence was given for this view.
> >
> >
> >
> > "Most applications of the panbiogeography method tend
> towards the
> > narrative rather than the analytical"
> >
> >
> >
> > He did give the caveat that this was "at least not in
> the sense observed
> > in vicariance biogeography"
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > "...they strongly advocate using biogeographic
> distributions as evidence
> > of phylogenetic relationships, but their examples have
> preconceived
> > notions of relationships built into them."
> >
> >
> >
> > He never said how they were preconceived.
> >
> >
> >
> > "The authors are strong supporters of the importance
> of systematics, but
> > they are short on specific analytical procedures of
> how biogeography
> > might be used to infer relationships."
> >
> >
> >
> > This was only one subject among many.
> >
> >
> >
> > Regarding Ivie's reference to "Serious problems
> inherent in the
> > Panbiogeography method, which have been documented in
> the literature ad
> > nauseum' the comments by Cracraft do not point to any
> "serious problems"
> > that negate the validity of the method, and in
> particular its real,
> > predictive achievements (that have to be dismissed by
> opponents out of
> > hand even though a corresponding predictive ability in
> dispersal
> > biogeography has never been produced).
> >
> >
> >
> > As Cracraft notes, "each biogeographic method has its
> strengths and
> > limitations in describing and explaining biogeographic
> patterns".
> > However such views may be applied to panbiogeography
> is up to each
> > individual, but so far the rejections of
> panbiogeography have not been
> > on the level of empirical falsification (e.g. of the
> novel predictions,
> > of tectonic correlations etc.). Even the molecular
> clock theorists, who
> > thought they had the falsification, failed by
> misrepresenting molecular
> > clock divergence dates as maximal rather than minimal
> estimates.
> >
> >
> >
> > John Grehan
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Dr. John R. Grehan
> >
> > Director of Science
> >
> > Buffalo Museum of Science1020 Humboldt Parkway
> >
> > Buffalo, NY 14211-1193
> >
> > email: jgrehan at sciencebuff.org
> >
> > Phone: (716) 896-5200 ext 372
> >
> >
> >
> > Panbiogeography
> >
> > http://www.sciencebuff.org/research/current-research-activities/john-gre
> > han/evolutionary-biography
> > <http://www.sciencebuff.org/biogeography_and_evolutionary_biology.php>
> >
> > Ghost moth research
> >
> > http://www.sciencebuff.org/research/current-research-activities/john-gre
> > han/ghost-moths
> > <http://www.sciencebuff.org/systematics_and_evolution_of_hepialdiae.php>
> >
> >
> > Human evolution and the great apes
> >
> > http://www.sciencebuff.org/research/current-research-activities/john-gre
> > han/human-origins
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
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> >
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> >
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> search terms here
> >
> >
> 
> 
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