Biogeographic Range

1
Biogeographic Range

• Biological DistributionsCartographic and
  database problemsRestricted ranges
  endemicsSeparated ranges disjunctsWidespread
  ranges cosmopolitans Provinces and
  realmsDynamic ranges

2
Cartographic and database problems in mapping
biogeographic ranges

• What scale (local - global)?
• Dots or areas?
• Static or dynamic? motile species (seasonal
  migrations, eruptives) dynamic ranges
• Database issues?

3
Scale (defined by purpose of the range mapping
exercise)
global
continental
regional
populations
individuals
4
Range representation dots or areas?

• e.g. swordfern (Polystichum munitum)

Ferns and Fern Allies of BC Ferns of North
America
5
Database problemse.g. plant collection sites
(U. Alaska herbarium)
Arctic Ocean
R
AK
YK
Bering Sea
Pacific Ocean
BC
6
Migratory species range maps
http//birds.cornell.edu/programs/AllAboutBirds/Bi
rdGuide
7
Winter eruptions of boreal birds(e.g red and
white-winged crossbills)
1962
1963
RC
WWC
WWC
RC
1965
1964
WWC
WWC
RC
RC
Data from the annual Christmas count of the
Audubon Society
8
Dynamic ranges cartographic issues
Native occurrence Introduction (established
alien) Status unknown or uncertain Extinct Probabl
y extinct Record uncertain (as to identification
or locality)

x
?
before 1900 1900-39 1940 onwards
Age of introduction
(e.g. Jalas, J. and Suominen, J. (eds.) 1972.
Atlas Florae Europae. Helsinki)
9
Summarizing range

• 1. Extent
• endemic provincial continental cosmopolitan
• 2. Location prefixes amphi-/circum-/pan-/ suffi
  xes -tropical/-boreal/-arctic/-pacific biogeogra
  phic realm/province
• 3. Continuity continuous - disjunct

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Endemics
Organisms that have restricted distributions.
The range can be very local (narrow endemics) or
regional (broad endemics). Local endemics are of
particular concern because they usually have
small populations and may be under threat of
extinction. Endemics may have evolved recently,
and still be restricted to their place of origin
(neoendemics) or be living fossils
(palaeoendemics). The latter may survive in
refuges from competition (evolutionary relicts)
or in limited areas of suitable climate (climatic
relicts).
11
Remote islands are neoendemism hotspots
New Zealand Hawaiian islands
12
Location and age of the Hawaiian islands
13
Hawaiian endemics
e.g. endemic plants silverswords 28
spp. silverswords and the closely related
Hawaiian tarweeds are members of the sunflower
family
14
Endemism and island age
15
Galapagos geography
100 km
16
Endemism and isolation(within the Galapagos
archipelago)
Endemic subspecies of Darwins Finches ()
Distance of island from centre of archipelago
(Santa Cruz Is. (Indefatigable)) km
17
Endemic plant species, Alaska
Arctic Ocean
1-9
10-19
20-29
30
Pacific Ocean
Bering Sea
18
Paleoendemics e.g. Gingko biloba(the living
fossil - Darwin)
Discovered by western science in 1691 by the
German botanist/physician Engelbert Kaempfer in
monastery gardens in southern China. Gingko
trees had been cultivated by Buddhist monks from
about AD1100. Small populations are known from
remote mountains between Zheijiang and Anhwei
provinces in southwestern China. These may be
native or temple escapes (seeds carried by
birds). Kaempfer brought gingko seeds to Holland
(planted AD1730). Introduced into North America
in 1784.
19
Is Gingko biloba the ultimate evolutionary relict?
No. spp, 0 10 20
Ma 0
Gingko huttonii
65
Jurassic Cret. Tertiary
144
Jurassic (175Ma) England
Triassic
208
20
Gingko rangeTertiaryMesozoic
Extinct 7 Ma
Extinct 2.5 Ma
Recent (1 sp.) Pliocene Miocene Oligocene Eocene P
aleocene
Cretaceous (15 spp.) Jurassic (6 spp.)
21
Pinus radiata (Monterey pine)a palaeoendemic
climatic relict.(Total stand area 250 ha)
California
Pacific Ocean
22
Pinus radiatalate Tertiary and Quaternary
fossil localities
Recent
Pleistocene
Pliocene
Miocene
23
Radiata pine plantations now cover 10,000x the
native area in California
Chile 1.5M ha NZ 1.4M ha Australia 0.6M ha S.
Africa ? ha
Now the worlds most widely-planted softwood tree
species. Favoured because its growth period is
not genetically limited and it is therefore
never dormant. Consequently it is unable to
withstand severe frosts.
In NZ radiata pine grows 20x times as fast as
Canadian pines
24
Disjunct distributions e.g. Gorilla gorilla
G. g. gorilla range (in red)G. g. diehli (in
green with arrow)G. b. graueri (in blue)G. b.
beringei (in orange with arrow)
25
Common plant disjunctions
26
Amphitropical disjunctions
27
Southern continent disjunctions
28
Oddities Empetraceae panboreal with scattered
outposts in southern hemisphere
29
Cosmopolitan organisms
e.g. Vespertilionidae (bats)
30
Biogeographic realms
Defined as large areas (continental scale) having
more-or-less uniform assemblages of
species. Note differences between botanical and
zoological realms (e.g. boreal vs. palearctic
and nearctic)
31
Philip Sclater (1858)
On the General Geographical Distribution of the
Members of the Class Aves
An important problem in Natural History, and one
that has hitherto been too little agitated, is
that of ascertaining the most natural primary
divisions of the earth's surface, taking the
amount of similarity or dissimilarity of
organized life solely as our guide. It is a
well-known and universally acknowledged fact that
we can choose two portions of the globe of which
the respective Faunæ and Floræ shall be so
different, that we should not be far wrong in
supposing them to have been the result of
distinct creations. Assuming then that there are,
or may be, more areas of creation than one, the
question naturally arises, how many of them are
there, and what are their respective extents and
boundaries, or in other words, what are the most
natural primary ontological divisions of the
earth's surface?
Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean
Society Zoology 2 (1858) 130-145
32
Sclaters realms (1858)
33
Response from Alfred Wallace
My Dear Mr. Sclater --Your paper on "The
Geographical Distribution of Birds has
particularly interested me, and I hope that a few
remarks and criticisms thereon may not be
unacceptable to you. With your division of the
earth into six grand zoological provinces I
perfectly agree, and believe they will be
confirmed by every other department of zoology as
well as by botany.
(my italics)
Letter from Mr. Wallace Concerning the
Geographical Distribution of Birds (1859) Ibis,
v. 1
34
Zoogeographic realms
Largely based on Wallaces analysis of the ranges
of families of mammals
35
Wallaces Line
There is perhaps no fact connected with
geographical distribution more extraordinary, and
at first sight inexplicable, than the division of
such an apparently homogeneous tract as the
Indian Archipelago between two provinces which
have less in common than any other two upon the
earth. To the geographer and geologist, there is
absolutely nothing to mark the division between
the two regions.      Between the Indian and
Australian zoological regions, as above defined,
I believe there is absolutely no true
transition..I believe that these two regions are
as absolutely distinct as South America and
Africa, and it is only because they are separated
by straits of from 20 to 100 miles wide, instead
of the Atlantic, that they have become slightly
connected by the interchange of a few species and
genera.
Indonesian archipelago
Letter from Mr. Wallace Concerning the
Geographical Distribution of Birds (1859) Ibis,
v. 1
36
Oriental-Australian distinctiveness
Isolines percentage of the Indonesian fauna
(mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians,
butterflies and land snails) that are of
Australian origin
cockatoo limit
Oriental
gt300
2
30
10
55
Number of freshwater fish species
Australian
75
37
Oriental-Australian realm boundaries
38
Geographical range of beech species
Brown areas are temperate deciduous forest biomes
F. japonica F. engleriana F. mulinervis
F. mexicana F. grandiflora F. sylvatica F.
orientalis F. lucida F. hayatae
F.engleriana
F. longipetiolata
39
(No Transcript)
40
Dynamic ranges historic
Buffalo (Bison bison)
European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)
1900
41
Climate change and range dynamics
42
Is climate change leading to range shifts at
present?
pyrrhuloxia (Cardinalis sinuatis)
sage sparrow (Amphispiza belli)
43
Dynamic ranges presentpyrulloxhia (1970-89)
1985-9 1975-9
1980-4 1970-4
44
Dynamic ranges presentsage sparrow (1970-89)
1985-9 1975-9
1980-4 1970-4
45
Dynamic ranges present and future(Mountain pine
beetle)
Climatic control on MPB range e.g., 1.
Underbark temperatures -40C cause 100
mortality in MPB populations 2. MPBs fly
only when air temperatures gt18.3C
http//www.env.gov.bc.ca/air/climate/indicat/beetl
e_id1.html
46
http//www.env.gov.bc.ca/air/climate/indicat/beetl
e_id1.html
Dynamic ranges present and future(Mountain pine
beetle)
47
Dynamic ranges future
American beech PD (modeled at top left), and x2
CO2 scenarios (output from 5 climatemodels) Remn
ant stands in Appalachia and Maine?
http//www.fs.fed.us./ne/delaware/atlas/
48
Dynamic ranges future
Future range of Fagus grandifolia (American
beech) (x2 CO2 scenario)