[Taxacom] Long-distance oceanic dispersal (rafting) of Nothofagus species

Wed Jun 6 18:10:11 CDT 2018

To me this is about as feeble as it gets with biogeography - that  dispersal
occurred more than once but left no evidence. But it happened more than
once for sure. Well, its a belief that may be held by many, but not one I
could see as particularly informative.

I think I would see dispersal accounts as being more scientific if they
addressed the tectonic anomalies - why supposedly randomly dispersing taxa
just happen to have the kinds of distributions they have (and for primates
this is extensively, extensively, documented). And why, for example, there
is a correlation between major oil fields and maximum primate diversity if
not a common historical relationship.

As Heads has already pointed out, there is a lot one can get out of
biogeography without a definitive time scale, or any time scale. Just being
aware of patterns of allopatry or sympatry in relation to phylogeny is
something that at least describes the spatial evolution of taxa that is
then open to further analysis. Recently I resolved a clade with a southern
Ecuador-Peru range along the eastern Andes with a potential sister clade in
central Ecuador. A colleague of mine remarked that this was a pattern
repeated in just about every major lepidopteran lineage in the region, so
even without a time scale the finding of was of general relevance (and
these are moths that fly around).

Ken, since you are so confident about primate chance dispersal, how about
you read Heads (2012) and publish a critique? Show that your position is
not simply one of 'fairly tales'.

John Grehan

On Wed, Jun 6, 2018 at 5:58 PM, Kenneth Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com> wrote:

>        Competitive exclusion as it relates to oceanic dispersal does not
> have to be between groups that are that closely related.  It perhaps
> explains why there are no monkeys in Madagascar.  The lemur ancestor
> dispersed to Madagascar first.  If any monkeys dispersed to Madagascar
> later, they would have found all their niches filled by well-established
> lemurs.
>
>      And likewise, lemurs may have dispersed back into mainland Africa,
> but if they did, they would have found their niches already filled by
> monkeys.  So many monkeys that the lemur invaders would probably be killed
> by them.
>
>      So your question "why only once" is answered.  It probably wasn't
> only once.  There are probably lots of cases with multiple dispersals of a
> group, but only the first to disperse became well-established, and small
> numbers of later dispersers simply died very soon after arriving.  They
> would have left no evidence of their dispersal.
>
>                 ---------------Ken
>
> ________________________________
> From: Michael Heads <m.j.heads at gmail.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 6, 2018 4:18 PM
> To: Kenneth Kinman
> Cc: Taxacom
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Long-distance oceanic dispersal (rafting) of
> Nothofagus species
>
> the competitive exclusion idea only works if the clades are allopatric. In
> many cases two groups overlap in large parts of their range. For example,
> the Polyura 'eudamippus  group' of butterflies: China to Sumatra and
> Borneo; P.  'pyrrhus group':Sumatra (not Borneo) to SE Australia and Fiji.
> The two groups overlap through Sumatra.
>
> On Thu, Jun 7, 2018 at 5:26 AM, Kenneth Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com<mailto:
> kinman at hotmail.com>> wrote:
> Hi Jason,
>
>        Excellent post.  Regarding Michael's "why only once" argument, I
> would only add that I have provided another explanation in a post back in
> 2012.  Namely: competitive exclusion, where the first dispersal is so
> successful that it fills all the niches for that animal or plant.  If
> another dispersal happens millions of years later, they usually can't
> compete with the already well-established populations of its relative.
>
>       Here is a quote from the end of my posting on 01 January 2012:
>
> "In view of John's criticisms, it should be remembered that dispersal
> ability certainly does not ensure that oceanic dispersals will be
> successful in most cases. Being able to disperse long distances is only the
> first step, but lack of suitable habitat, and more importantly competitive
> exclusion by other taxa already well-established, are obviously barriers to
> even good dispersers being automatically spread geographically. Such
> arguments against dispersalist hypotheses are therefore unconvincing
> (perhaps simple, but perhaps too often simplistic)."
>
> Here's a weblink to that post: http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/
> pipermail/taxacom/2012-January/121575.html
>
>
> -------------Ken
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-bounces@
> mailman.nhm.ku.edu>> on behalf of JF Mate <aphodiinaemate at gmail.com<
> mailto:aphodiinaemate at gmail.com>>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 6, 2018 11:23 AM
> To: Taxacom
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Long-distance oceanic dispersal (rafting) of
> Nothofagus species
>
> John,
>
> analyzing biogeographic distributions is not very useful in the
> absence of a time scale. Timing is often the only difference between
> dispersal and vicariance, and all the arguments I can recall revolve
> around the absolute or relative timing of splits of one lineage vs
> another and/vs tectonics. That is why I think you focus so much on the
> only proxy we have to complete the extremely patchy fossil record.
> In the particular case of the Platyrrhini, the available evidence
> suggests that the age for the group is c. 25-32mya
> (https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msg172) and this is the most widely
> accepted date (give or take but close to this range) using well
> accepted molecular dating methods and fossils. You can quibble about
> fossils and calibrations if the window was small enough, but the gap
> is a chasm considering what you would need for the alternate scenario,
> so we can only conclude, based on the available evidence at hand, that
> the NW monkeys arrived there over sea and not as a result of
> vicariance. Should fossils be found at a later date that push the
> origin back sufficiently to consider the latter scenario then great,
> but so far this is not the case. If they made it there swimming,
> rafting or island-hopping (all three possible perfectably reasonable
> dispersal mechanisms) is a matter of testing the ability of these
> monkeys to survive each of these scenarios. None of this is a fairy
> tale, pseudoscience nor an attack on vicariance.
>
> This sort of dovetails with Michael´s often repeated question of "why
> only once". My answer is because dispersal is hard, unplanned and the
> chances of success slim to nil.
>
>
> Jason
>
>
>
>
> On 5 June 2018 at 01:00, John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com<mailto:
> calabar.john at gmail.com>> wrote:
> > Jason,
> >
> > I would suggest that the snag is not so much one side claims that
> molecular
> > data is glorified phenetics or that dispersal is an unquantified,
> undefined
> > amount that exists beyond the equally fuzzy "ecological dispersal". In
> the
> > present discussion the issue has revolved around the age of extant
> > Nothofagus and monkeys. In both cases the challenge presented to their
> being
> > young was to ask for evidence. So far the response has been fossils, but
> > without explaining how the present fossil record precludes Mesozoic
> origins
> > for the taxa. There has further been the assumption that molecular dates
> are
> > actual or absolute rather than minimal, but Ken says this is a red
> herring,
> > I think because he was indicating that his position was not based on
> > molecular divergence estimates (I may have that wrong in which Ken can
> > correct).
> >
> > Arguments about molecular data and trees are phenetic or not is of no
> > concern as far as biogeographic analysis is concerned - which can analyze
> > the geographic distribution of any phylogeny.
> >
> > John Grehan
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 4, 2018 at 4:42 PM, JF Mate <aphodiinaemate at gmail.com<
> mailto:aphodiinaemate at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >> What I meant is that the topic, as far as I see it, is dead in Taxacom
> >> (bar a few brave souls) since no fruitful debate is possible. The
> >> discourse invariably hits the same snags:
> >>
> >> One side claims that molecular data is glorified phenetics with no
> >> contextual value if it contradicts a particular point of
> >> view/hypothesis.
> >> Dispersal is an unquantified, undefined amount that exists beyond the
> >> equally fuzzy "ecological dispersal".
> >> More fossils can always be found.
> >>
> >> As for the field, what I see is that people have long moved on,
> >> pursuing a hybrid model where the facts, always scarce and patchy, may
> >> support one model or another, and where novel data may refute previous
> >> hypotheses. In the end some things have moved (either due to luck or
> >> ability) and others haven´t, but in the end every case should assume
> >> that there is no de facto explanation.
> >>
> >> Jason
> >>
>
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> Nurturing Nuance while Assaulting Ambiguity for 31 Some Years, 1987-2018.
>
>
>
> --
> Dunedin, New Zealand.
>
> My books:
>
>
> Biogeography and evolution in New Zealand. Taylor and Francis/CRC, Boca
> Raton FL. 2017.  https://www.routledge.com/Biogeography-and-Evolution-in-
> New-Zealand/Heads/p/book/9781498751872
>
>
> Biogeography of Australasia:  A molecular analysis. Cambridge University
> Press, Cambridge. 2014. www.cambridge.org/9781107041028<http://www.
> cambridge.org/9781107041028>
>
>
> Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics. University of California Press,
> Berkeley. 2012. www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520271968<http://www.
> ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520271968>
>
>
> Panbiogeography: Tracking the history of life. Oxford University Press,
> New York. 1999. (With R. Craw and J. Grehan). http://books.google.co.nz/
> books?id=Bm0_QQ3Z6GUC<http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=Bm0_QQ3Z6GUC&dq=
> panbiogeography&source=gbs_navlinks_s>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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> Nurturing Nuance while Assaulting Ambiguity for 31 Some Years, 1987-2018.
>