perspective: Why biogeography matters: historical biogeography vs. phylogeography and community phylogenetics for inferring ecological and evolutionary processes

Phylogenetic and phylogeographic approaches have become widespread in evolutionary biology, ecology, and biogeography. However, analyses that incorporate inferences from historical biogeography (e.g. timing of colonization of a region) may be essential to answer the most important large-scale questions in these fields, but they remain infrequently used. I focus on two examples here. First, I argue that understanding the origins of biodiversity hotspots (and other high-diversity regions) requires comparing the timing of biogeographic colonization and diversification rates among regions. In contrast, phylogeographic studies (analyses within species