Abstract
Overseas dispersals are often invoked when Southern Hemisphere terrestrial and freshwater organism phylogenies do not fit the sequence or timing of Gondwana fragmentation. We used dispersal-vicariance analyses and molecular timetrees to show that two species-rich frog groups, Microhylidae and Natatanura, display congruent patterns of spatial and temporal diversification among Gondwanan plates in the Late Cretaceous, long after the presumed major tectonic break-up events. Because amphibians are notoriously salt-intolerant, these analogies are best explained by simultaneous vicariance, rather than by oceanic dispersal. Hence our results imply Late Cretaceous connections between most adjacent Gondwanan landmasses, an essential concept for biogeographic and palaeomap reconstructions.
Highlights
Ever since Alfred Wegener’s theory in 1915, biologists have had vicariance at their disposal as a mechanism to logically explain transoceanic distributions in plants and animals
Accretion of landmasses, like vicariance, allows multiple groups to simultaneously depict the same change in their distribution [15,16]
The Madagascar-Eurasia splits reflect the vicariance between Madagascar and India (Figure 2, purple)
Summary
Ever since Alfred Wegener’s theory in 1915, biologists have had vicariance at their disposal as a mechanism to logically explain transoceanic distributions in plants and animals. There is an increasing number of Southern Hemisphere taxa for which divergence time estimates do not readily fit the temporal framework of fragmentation [2,3]. This lack of concordance has sometimes led to the conclusion that the distribution of these organisms resulted from overseas dispersal events [e.g. 4], rather than from a vicariant history. If theories of prolonged connections [6], intervening landmasses [2,3], or a completely enclosed Pacific Basin [7] in the Late Cretaceous would prove to be correct, several of the younger phylogenies might still be explained by Gondwanan vicariance
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