Evolution 14 The Geography of Evolution
Evolution 14 The Geography of Evolution
IIS2024
The Geography
of Evolution
Diego Tirira PhD
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Based on
Futuyma & Kirkpatrick (2017)
Bearded pig (Sus barbatus), found in
Borneo, is one of the easternmost
www.biografiasyvidas.com/monografia
Friedrich Georg Weitsch
and many more.
• They told stories not only of
hardships and of encounters
with indigenous peoples, but
also of amazing animals and Alexander von Humboldt
https://goldenagepaintings.blogspot.com
history museums, zoos,
and botanical gardens.
• All visitors to zoos and
gardens marvel at these
unique animals and
curious plants.
The Geography of Evolution
• But also, it caused a confrontation with the Bible and Noah's
Ark.
https://www.boxerlinks.eu/
all anecdotal encounters with the local
wildlife:
… «y en la comarca de Quito hay
gran cantidad de conejos, y por las
montañas algunas dantas».
Naturalists in Ecuador
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Naturalists in Ecuador
• Main naturalists that came to actual
Ecuador and recounted their travels
in exotic lands were:
• Charles Marie La Condamine
• Jorge Juan y Antonio de Ulloa
• Antonio Pineda
• Alexander Humboldt
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The Geography of Evolution
• If European plants were found
growing near American
seaports, having been
accidentally transported across
the Atlantic, they asked:
• Why had they not already
occupied America?
• If those species could prosper
Bernard Gribble
in what proved to be a suitable
new region, why weren’t they
already there?
The Geography of Evolution
Diego Tirira
Islands, we will naturally answer
that elephants couldn’t get there.
Biogeographic Evidence for Evolution
• This answer assumes that elephants originated
somewhere else: perhaps on a continent.
• But in a pre-evolutionary view,
such as that of divine creation,
the answer would be different:
• “This is the work of the Creator”.
• “He, in his wisdom (sabiduría)
placed the species in the place
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he considered best.
Biogeographic Evidence for Evolution
• Darwin devoted two chapters of On the
Origin of Species to showing that many
biogeographic facts that make little sense
under the hypothesis of special creation
make a great deal of sense if a species:
• (1) has a definite site or region of origin,
• (2) reaches a broader distribution by
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dispersal, and
• (3) becomes modified and gives rise to
descendant species in the various regions
to which it disperses.
Biogeographic Evidence for Evolution 1
• Darwin emphasized the following points:
• First, “neither the similarity nor the
dissimilarity of the inhabitants of various
regions can be fully explained by climates
and other physical conditions.”
• Similar climates and habitats, such as
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deserts and rainforests, occur in both the
Old and the New World, yet the organisms
inhabiting them are unrelated.
Biomes of the planet
Map by Wikipedia
Strepsirrhini
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Platyrrhini
Biogeographic Evidence for Evolution 2
• Second, “barriers of any kind, or obstacles to
free migration, are related in a close and
important manner to the differences
between the productions [organisms] of
various regions.”
• Darwin noted, for instance, that marine
species on the eastern and western coasts
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of South America are very different.
Biogeographic Evidence for Evolution
Coypu
3
• Third, “inhabitants of the same
continent or the same sea are related,
although the species themselves
differ from place to place.”
• Darwin’s example: aquatic rodents
of South America (the coypu and
capybara), which are structurally
similar to, and related to, South
Muskrat
Capybara
Biogeographic Evidence for Evolution
• According to Darwin, there is a deep
organic bond (vínculo), across space
and time, over the same areas of land
and water, regardless of physical
conditions.
• This link is simply heredity [i.e.,
common ancestry], that cause which
alone produces organisms closely
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resembling each other.
Biogeographic Evidence for Evolution
• For Darwin, it was important to show
that a species had not been created in
different places, but had a single region
of origin, and had spread from there.
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FD
Biogeographic Evidence for Evolution 1
• Darwin drew particularly compelling
evidence from the inhabitants of islands.
• First, remote oceanic islands generally have
precisely those kinds of organisms that are
capable of long-distance dispersal and lack
organisms that do not.
https://mapas.owje.com/maps
• For example, the only
native mammals on
many islands are bats.
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Biogeographic Evidence for Evolution
Flightless cormorant (Galápagos)
1
• Island species with poor dispersal
ability, such as the dodo and other
flightless birds, are closely related
to strong flyers, and
https://www.magzter.com/stories
descended
from them.
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Dodo (Mauricio Island)
Biogeographic Evidence for Evolution 2
• Second, many continental species of
plants and animals have flourished on
oceanic islands to which humans have
transported them.
• Thus, said Darwin, “who admits the
doctrine of the creation of each
separate species, will have to admit
that a sufficient number of the best
adapted plants and animals were not
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created for oceanic islands.”
Biogeographic Evidence for Evolution 3
• Third, most of the species on
islands are clearly related to species
on the nearest mainland, implying
Heidi Snell
that was their source.
• This is the case for almost all the
birds, mammals, plants, and other
species of the Galápagos Islands.
• For example, rats of the genus
https://mammothmemory.net/biology
for dispersal by mammals, yet on
oceanic islands that lack mammals,
many endemic
plants nevertheless
have hooked seeds.
Jude / Flicker
Biogeographic Evidence for Evolution 4
• Fourth, the proportion of species that are
restricted to an island (that is the Endemic
species) is particularly high when the
opportunity for dispersal to the island is low.
www.anapsid.org/chaco4figs.html
14 species
www.galapagos.org
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Charles Darwin
www.discoverlife.org/mp/20m?kind=Plethodon
and many higher taxa are likewise
restricted (endemic) to a particular
geographic region.
• For example, the salamander genus
Plethodon is limited to North America
(approx. 50 species)
• Some species are restricted to specific
areas.
Major Patterns of Distribution Columbidae Apterygidae
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Wikipedia
• Whereas others (e.g. pigeon family,
Columbidae, are almost cosmopolitan).
Bruxaux (2018)
Wikipedia
Major Patterns of Distribution
• Wallace recognized that many higher taxa have roughly
similar distributions, and that the taxonomic composition
of the biota is more uniform Wallace’s Line
https://wildlife-photographs.blogspot.com
www.britannica.com/animal/orangutan
between them.
• For example, Wallace
discovered a severe break in
the taxonomic composition
of animal species among
the islands between SE Asia
and Australia.
Major Patterns of Distribution
• As far east as Borneo,
most vertebrates
belong to Asian
families and genera,
whereas the fauna to
https://coraltriangleadventures.com
the east has
Australian affinities.
• This faunal break has
been called Wallace’s
line.
Major Patterns of Distribution
• Wallace’s line separates
islands that, despite
their proximity and
similar climate, differ
greatly in their fauna.
https://sciencythoughts.blogspot.com
https://coraltriangleadventures.com
• The islands to the west
were connected to the
Asian mainland during
periods of low sea level;
those to the east were
not.
Major Patterns of Distribution
• Based on these observations, • Palearctic (Eurasia and
Wallace designated several northern Africa)
biogeographic realms (major • Nearctic (North America)
regions that have characteristic • Neotropical (Central and
animal and plant taxa) for South America)
terrestrial and freshwater • Ethiopian (sub-Saharan
organisms that are still widely Africa)
• Oriental (India and
recognized today:
Southeast Asia)
• These realms are more the result • Australian (Australia, New
of Earth’s history than of its current Guinea, New Zealand, and
climate or land mass distribution. nearby islands).
Futuyma and Kirkpatrick (2017)
Biogeographic realms
Proposed por Alfred Russel Wallace (1876)
The geographical distribution of animals
Major Patterns of Distribution
• Each biogeographic realm is inhabited
by many higher taxa that are much more
diverse in that realm than elsewhere, or
are even restricted to that realm.
• For example, the endemic (or
nearly endemic) taxa of the
BP Los Cedros
infiltrate neighboring realms to varying degrees.
• In the Nearctic realm (North America), for
instance, some species are related to, and
www.carnivorasland.com/tillandsias
have been derived from,
Neotropical stocks.
• Examples: an armadillo, an
opossum, and Spanish
moss (Tillandsia usneoides),
a bromeliad.
Disjunct distributions 20 species
Wikipedia
www.conifers.org/ar/Araucaria.php
in each area they occupy.
• Example, many taxa are represented
on two or more southern continents,
including lungfishes, marsupials,
cichlid fishes, and Araucaria pines.
Major Patterns of Distribution
• Common disjunct patterns are illustrated North America
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• They are found in eastern North
America and in temperate eastern
Asia, but nowhere in between. Alligator mississippiensis (USA)
Alligator sinensis (China)
• Understanding how taxa
became disjunctly
distributed has long been a
preoccupation
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of biogeographers.
Wikipedia (both)
Lungfishes distribution
https://www.slideserve.com/olwen/the-earth-and-the-origin-of-life-chapter-26
Historical factors affecting
geographic distributions
Historical factors affecting distributions
• The geographic distribution of a taxon is affected by both
current and historical factors.
• The limits to its distribution may be set by:
• Geological barriers that it has not crossed, or
• Current ecological conditions to which it is not adapted.
• Those patters on the historical processes that define the
current distribution of a taxon are defined by:
• (1) extinction,
• (2) dispersal, and
• (3) vicariance.
1 Extinction Horses
returned to
North America
• The distribution of: with European
• a species may have been reduced by the colonists
extinction of some populations, and
• a higher taxon by the extinction of some
constituent species.
• For example, the horses (Equidae) originated
and became diverse in North America, but
later it became extinct there.
• Only the African zebras and the Asian
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wild asses and horses have survived.
1 Extinction
• Likewise, extinction is the cause
of the disjunction between related
taxa in eastern Asia and eastern
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North America.
• During the Paleogene Alligator mississippiensis (USA)
Alligator sinensis (China)
(66–23 Mya), many plants
and animals spread
throughout the northern
regions of North America
Wikipedia
and Eurasia.
1 Extinction
• Their spread was facilitated by a
warm, moist climate and by land
connections from North America
to both Europe and Siberia.
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• Many of these taxa became extinct
in western North America in the Alligator mississippiensis (USA)
Neogene (23–5.3 Mya) as Alligator sinensis (China)
a result of mountain uplift
and a cooler, drier climate.
• Later there were
Wikipedia
extinguished in Europe by
Pleistocene glaciations.
1 Extinction
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Alligator mississippiensis (USA)
Wikipedia
Wikipedia
2 Dispersal
• Species expand their ranges by dispersal (movement of
individuals).
• Some species of plants and animals can expand their
ranges rapidly.
• Within the last 200 years, many species of plants, and some
animals, accidentally brought from Europe by humans have
expanded across most of North America from New York and
New England.
• Some birds, such as the European starling (estornino)
(Sturnus vulgaris) and the house sparrow (Passer
domesticus), have done the same within a century.
Futuyma and Kirkpatrick (2017)
2 Dispersal
History of
range
expansion of
the European
starling
(Sturnus
vulgaris)
following its
introduction
into New York
City in 1896
2 Dispersal
• Other species have crossed
major barriers on their own.
• The cattle egret (Bubulcus
ibis) has had the largest and
most rapid natural
expansion of all bird
species.
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2 Dispersal
• It was found only in tropical
and subtropical parts of the
Old World until about 140
FD
years ago.
• Then it arrived in South
America, apparently
unassisted by humans.
• It has since spread
throughout the warmer
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parts of the New World.
https://dragonflyissuesinevolution13.fandom.com
3 Vicariance
• Vicarious =
“substitute” or “in
place of”.
• Ex. Vicario apostólico.
• Vicariance refers to the separation of populations of a
widespread species by barriers arising from changes in
geology, climate, or habitat.
• The separated populations diverge, and they often
become different subspecies, species, or higher taxa.
3 Vicariance
• Example, for many species of
fish, shrimps, and other marine
animal groups, the closest
relative of a species on the
Pacific side of the Isthmus of
Panama is other species on the
Caribbean side of the isthmus.
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3 Vicariance
• Each pair of species has
descended from a broadly
distributed ancestral species
that was separated by the rise Pacific Ocean
Caribbean Sea
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distributed far to the south.
FD
Historical factors affecting distributions
• When the climate
became warmer,
these species
recolonized northern
regions, and
southern populations
became extinct.
• Except populations
of some species that
survived on cold
mountaintops.
FD
Historical factors affecting distributions
• Disjunct distribution
of a Saxifraga
cernua in northern
and mountainous
regions of the
Espeletia in Ecuador
Ecuador (El Ángel)
• Frailejones inhabit
continuously from
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western Venezuela,
Colombia and Ecuador (Llanganates)
https://laverdadnoticias.com/ecologia
northern Ecuador.
• Except for an
isolated population
in Llanganates,
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central Ecuador.
www.goraymi.com
Historical factors affecting
distributions
• Populations or species that have been
left behind in this way may be called
relicts.
• In this case, dispersal expanded the
https://laverdadnoticias.com/ecologia
Ecuador (Llanganates)
range, and extinction of populations
in intervening habitat caused the
vicariant disjunction of populations.
Phylogeography
Phylogeography
• Phylogeography is the description and analysis of the
processes that explain the geographic distribution of
the species, especially within
closely related taxa.
https://mapofafricanew.blogspot.com
• These processes include the
dispersal of the organisms
that carry the genes.
• Provides understanding into
the past movements of
species (including humans).
Phylogeography
• Phylogeography provides insight
into the past movements of species
and the history by which dispersal
and vicariance have determined
their present distributions.
• Phylogeographic studies find the
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Phylogeography
• For example, the genetic differences among populations of
many species of freshwater fishes and other species in the
SE United States show that they were separated into
western and eastern populations in the past, probably by
high sea level during interglacial episodes.
Guido Chaves
• To disperse to the new region
individuals need reproduce and to do
must find mates, which may be
difficult if there are few individuals and
the initial population density is very low.
Geographic range limits
• Self-fertilizing (selfers) plants have larger geographic ranges
than outcrossers (reproducción cruzada).
• The histogram shows the relative range sizes
of selfers compared with outcrossers
in 20 clades of flowering plants.
• Each column that extends
Pinterest
Geographic patterns
of diversity
Geographic patterns of diversity
• The evolutive study of a community ecology can explain:
• Species diversity, Ecological community
• Species composition, and
• Trophic structure of assemblages
of coexisting species.
• Both ecological and historical
biogeography bear on these topics,
www.abc.com.py
since the geographic ranges of species
determine whether or not they might
coexist.
Geographic patterns of diversity
• A pattern in community ecology is called
the Latitudinal diversity gradient: the Ecological community
numbers of species (and higher taxa
such as genera and families) decline
with increasing latitude, both on land
and in the ocean.
• Most taxa of terrestrial animals and
plants are far more diverse in tropics,
www.abc.com.py
especially in lowlands with abundant
rainfall, than in extratropical regions.
Latitudinal
diversity
gradient
Vascular plants in
various regions in
Resumen
• La biogeografía, el estudio de las distribuciones
geográficas de los organismos, tiene componentes
históricos y ecológicos.
• Ciertas distribuciones son consecuencia de la historia
evolutiva a largo plazo; otras, de factores ecológicos
actuales.
• Las distribuciones geográficas de los organismos
proporcionaron a Darwin y Wallace algunas de las
pruebas más sólidas de la evolución.
The Geography
of Evolution
Resumen
• Los procesos históricos que afectan a la distribución
de un taxón son la extinción, la dispersión y la
vicarianza (fragmentación de una distribución
continua por la aparición de una barrera).
• Estos procesos pueden verse afectados o acompañados
por cambios ambientales, de adaptación y de
especiación.
• Los procesos de dispersión o vicarianza pueden
deducirse a menudo a partir de datos filogenéticos.
The Geography
of Evolution
Resumen
• Las distribuciones disjuntas pueden atribuirse en
algunos casos a la vicarianza, pero la dispersión
parece ser la causa más común.
• Los patrones genéticos de variación geográfica dentro de
las especies pueden proporcionar información sobre los
cambios históricos en la distribución de una especie.
• La distribución local de las especies se ve afectada por
factores ecológicos, que incluyen tanto aspectos
abióticos, del medio, como características bióticas,
como competidores y depredadores.
The Geography
of Evolution
Resumen
• Por qué las especies no amplían indefinidamente sus
áreas de distribución, adaptándose cada vez más a
condiciones cada vez más lejanas, es una de las
principales preguntas de la biología evolutiva.
• Las pautas geográficas en el número y la diversidad de
las especies pueden deberse en parte a factores
ecológicos actuales, pero también pueden explicarse
por la historia evolutiva a largo plazo.