Historical biogeography in the age of complexity: expansion and integration Biogeografía histórica en la era de la complejidad: expansión e integración

Historical biogeography has recently experienced a significant advancement in three integrated areas. The first is the adoption of an ontology of complexity, replacing the traditional ontology of simplicity, or a priori parsimony; simple and elegant models of the biosphere are not sufficient for explaining the geographical context of the origin of species and their post-speciation movements, producing evolutionary radiations and complex multi-species biotas. The second is the development of a powerful method for producing area cladograms from complex data, especially cases of reticulated area relationships, without loss of information. That method, called Phylogenetic Analysis for Comparing trees (PACT), is described herein. The third element is the replacement of the model of maximum vicariance with the model called the Taxon Pulse hypothesis. Using PACT analysis for a data set of 33 different clades occurring in 9 different areas of endemism in Mexico, I show how taxon pulses can be detected. Finally, I show how PACT results can be used to provide a phylogenetic context for analyses of species-area relationships.