[Taxacom] Madagascar's biota overwhelmingly from Cenozoic dispersers

[John Grehan]

OK Ken,

You quote their claim that a divergence time analysis provides an
overwhelming indication of Cenozoic origins for most Malagasy clades. What
was the evidence that this divergence time analysis provided?

John Grehan


On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 2:49 PM, Ken Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Has Vicariance or Dispersal Been the Predominant Biogeographic Force in
> Madagascar? Only Time Will TellAnnual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and
> SystematicsVol. 37: 405-431 DOI: 10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.37.091305.110239by
> Anne D. Yoder and Michael D. Nowak
> Abstract.   Madagascar is one of the world's hottest biodiversity hot
> spots due to its diverse, endemic, and highly threatened biota. This biota
> shows a distinct signature of evolution in isolation, both in the high
> levels of diversity within lineages and in the imbalance of lineages that
> are represented. For example, chameleon diversity is the highest of any
> place on Earth, yet there are no salamanders. These biotic enigmas have
> inspired centuries of speculation relating to the mechanisms by which
> Madagascar's biota came to reside there. The two most probable causal
> factors are Gondwanan vicariance and/or Cenozoic dispersal. By reviewing a
> comprehensive sample of phylogenetic studies of Malagasy biota, we find
> that the predominant pattern is one of sister group relationships to
> African taxa. For those studies that include divergence time analysis, we
> find an overwhelming indication of Cenozoic origins for most Malagasy
> clades. We conclude that most of the present-day biota of Madagascar is
> comprised of the descendents of Cenozoic dispersers, predominantly with
> African origins.
>
>
>
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