[Taxacom] New paper on biogeography and ecology

[John Grehan]

For those interested in the relationship of biogeography and ecology I
highly recommend reading the new paper by Heads (2015) The relationship
between biogeography and ecology: envelopes, models, and  predictions.
Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. Pdf at
http://johngrehan.net/index.php/panbiogeography/panpublications/michael-heads-publications

Abstract
This paper reviews ideas on the relationship between the ecology of clades
and their distribution. Ecological biogeography represents a tradition that
dates back to ancient times. It assumes that the distribution of organisms
is explained by factors of present environment, especially climate. In
contrast, modern systematics, following its origins in the Renaissance,
concluded with Darwin that ‘neither the similarity nor the dissimilarity of
the inhabitants of various regions can be accounted for by their climatal
and other physical conditions’. In many cases, species distribution models
– ecological niche models – based on the current environment of a species
(its environmental
envelope) fail to predict the actual distribution of the species. In
particular, they often over-predict distributions. In addition, a group’s
niche often varies in space and time. These results provide valuable
evidence that Darwin was correct, and many ecologists now recognise that
there is a problem with the niche theory of distribution. Current
ecological processes explain distribution at smaller scales than do
biogeographical and evolutionary processes, but the latter can lead to
patterns that are much more local than many ecologists have assumed.
Biogeographical
phenomena often occur at a much smaller scale than that of the Wallacean
regions. In areas that have been subjected to marine inundation or intense
tectonism, many centres of endemism are only tens of kilometres across.