Taxacom: Butterfly biogeography

[John Grehan]

The following paper was just published. Can request a copy from me or other
authors. In my usual understated opinion, it clearly shows why the standard
center of origin and dispersal molecular biogeography is rotten to the core.

Heads, M, Grehan, J.R., Nielsen, J. & Patrick, B. 2023.
Biogeographic–tectonic calibration of 14 nodes in a butterfly
timetree. Cladistics doi: 10.1111/cla.12537

Abstract
The butterfly subtribe Coenonymphina (Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) comprises
four main clades found, respectively, in (1) the
Solomon Islands, (2) Australasia, (3) NW South America and (4) Laurasia,
with a phylogeny: 1 (2 (3 + 4)). In assessing biogeographic evolution in
the group we rejected the conversion of fossil-calibrated clade ages to
likely maximum clade ages by the imposition of arbitrary priors. Instead,
we used biogeographic–tectonic calibration, with fossil-calibrated ages
accepted as minima. Previous studies have used this approach to date single
nodes (phylogenetic–biogeographic breaks) in a group, but we extended the
methodology to date multiple nodes. Within the Coenonymphina as a whole, 14
nodes coincide spatially with ten major tectonic events. In addition, the
phylogenetic sequence of these nodes conforms to the chronological sequence
of the tectonic events, consistent with a vicariance origin of the clades.
Dating of the spatially coincident tectonic features provides a timescale
for the vicariance events. The tectonic events are: pre-drift
intracontinental rifting between India and Australia (150 Ma); seafloor
spreading at the margins of the growing Pacific plate, and between North
and South America (140 Ma); magmatism
flare-up along the SW Pacific Whitsunday Volcanic Province–Median Batholith
(130 Ma); a change from extension in the Clarence basin, eastern Australia,
to uplift of the Great Dividing Range (114 Ma); Pamir Mountains uplift,
foreland basin dynamics and high eustatic sea-levels leading to marine
transgression of the proto-Paratethys Ocean eastward to Central Asia and
Xinjiang (100 Ma); predrift rifting and seafloor spreading west of New
Caledonia (100–50 Ma); sinistral strike-slip displacement along the
proto-Alpine fault, New Zealand (100–80 Ma); thrust faulting in the Longmen
Shan and foreland basin dynamics around the Sichuan Basin (85 Ma);
pre-drift rifting in the Coral Sea basin (85 Ma); and dextral displacement
on the Alpine fault (20 Ma).

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