Geobiology and paleobiogeography: tracking the coevolution of the Earth and its biota

Abstract

Paleobiogeographic research is an important area of geobiology that involves the study of the coevolution of the Earth and its biota by considering how tectonic and climatic changes have affected the evolution and distribution of organisms. The intellectual heritage of the discipline stretches back well before Darwin. Phylogenetic approaches to paleobiogeography have played an important part in the expansion of the field, and recent analyses have incorporated Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Each of these approaches, by enhancing the precision of paleobiogeography, helps make the discipline more relevant to geobiology. The interaction occurring between the geological and biological sciences in paleobiogeography is apparent in several areas. First, there is the emergence of new techniques such as the ability to analyze ancient DNA sequences. Also, paleobiogeographers and biogeographers have realized that geo-dispersal, a biogeographic process first identified through studies of the fossil record, can powerfully influence the evolution and distribution of biotas. Finally, biogeographers have recognized that paleontological incompleteness and extinction constrain our ability to reconstruct biogeographic patterns in the fossil record and the extant biota, respectively. Each of these developments suggests that further growth in paleobiogeography will involve important interactions between studies involving the fossil record and the extant biota, and this, along with the discipline's commitment to studying how tectonic and climatic changes have influenced evolution, reaffirms the validity of the synthetic field that is geobiology.