The present paper presents the argument that only widespread terminals pose a …

• Abstract
• Introduction
• The event–based method
• Widespread taxa
• Missing areas and redundant distributions
• Which assumption should we choose?
• Software
• Conclusions
• References
• Figures
• Table

Biology Articles » Biogeography » New solutions to old problems: widespread taxa, redundant distributions and missing areas in event–based biogeography » Conclusions

Conclusions

- New solutions to old problems: widespread taxa, redundant distributions and missing areas in event–based biogeography

The controversy surrounding the treatment of widespread taxa, missing areas and redundant distributions in historical biogeography has been difficult to resolve because of the lack of a common theoretical framework. The event–based approach provides such a framework within which the nature of different methodological options and their effect on biogeographic reconstruction can easily be understood. We hope that our exploration of event–based solutions to the resolution of incongruence in biogeographic inference will contribute to a more focused debate on these issues in the future. The event– based solutions described here should be applicable not only to biogeographic analysis but also to coevolutionary inference.

Acknowledgments

We thank Henrik Enghoff and an anonymous reviewer for useful comments on this manuscript. This research was supported by the Swedish Natural Science Research Council (grant to Fredrik Ronquist) and through a European Community Marie Curie Fellowship (Isabel Sanmartín) under the Improving Human Potential programme (Project MCFI–2000–00794).