Quantitative palaeobiogeography: GIS, phylogenetic biogeographical analysis, and conservation insights

Palaeobiogeography is the study of biogeography in the fossil record and pursues as an overall goal tracing the coevolution of the Earth and its biota (Lieberman, 2005). Reconstructing the biogeographical ranges and examining the distribution of fossil organisms has long been an important area of palaeontological research. For example, the recognition that fossils of Mesosaurus, a freshwater reptile, were deposited in South America and Africa, on opposite sides of what is today an insurmountable marine barrier, was one of the key pieces of evidence in Alfred Wegener’s original formulation of continental drift (Hallam, 1981). Distributions of fossil organisms continue to provide critical information for calibrating modern plate tectonic reconstructions (e.g. Scotese & McKerrow, 1990). Palaeobiogeographical studies of higher taxa, such as families and orders, contribute important information about the evolutionary history of clades and their coevolution with the Earth. Characterization of the ranges of individual fossil Department of Geological Sciences, Ohio University, 316 Clippinger Laboratories, Athens, OH 45701, USA and Department of Geology, University of Kansas, 1475 Jayhawk Blvd, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA