Abstract
Aim
Although Antarctica hosted a diverse fauna and flora in the past, its modern climate is too extreme for many lineages: their recent extinction makes it difficult to include the continent in historical biogeographical analyses. We use southern temperate stream-inhabiting beetles as a model to explore whether Antarctica may be included in historical biogeographic reconstructions in a group absent from Antarctica today, and to test its role in shaping the current distribution of stream-inhabiting insects.
Taxon
Coleoptera, Elmidae.
Location
Southern Hemisphere temperate regions and Antarctica.
Methods
We included Antarctica in historical biogeographic analyses indirectly, as a component of distance matrices specifying the relative positions of continents, or by specifying Antarctica as a stepping-stone between remaining continents (in LEMAD). We used a newly constructed dated phylogeny of Elmidae to test the performance of these constrained analyses under different parameter settings and geographical scenarios.
Results
Antarctica can be implemented into historical biogeographic analyses via indirect constraints to produce biologically relevant reconstructions when long-distance dispersal events are highly penalized, the maximum number of areas per species is low, and expected extinction rates are high (in LEMAD). Unconstrained models, including those without Antarctica, result in simpler scenarios with fewer biogeographic events and better fit to data. The origin of austral clades of Elmidae post-date the separation of Gondwanan landmasses.
Main Conclusions
Antarctica can be included in historical biogeographic reconstructions under a priori assumptions that (1) it was part of the ancient biogeography of the clade, (2) the taxon has limited dispersal ability, making long-distance dispersal highly unlikely and (3) maximum range size is limited. These assumptions may be biologically justified for many animal groups. Over-water dispersal has been crucial in shaping the modern distribution of austral stream-inhabiting beetles, likely facilitated by ocean currents and dispersal through Antarctica until the Oligocene.
Although Antarctica hosted a diverse fauna and flora in the past, its modern climate is too extreme for many lineages: their recent extinction makes it difficult to include the continent in historical biogeographical analyses. We use southern temperate stream-inhabiting beetles as a model to explore whether Antarctica may be included in historical biogeographic reconstructions in a group absent from Antarctica today, and to test its role in shaping the current distribution of stream-inhabiting insects.
Taxon
Coleoptera, Elmidae.
Location
Southern Hemisphere temperate regions and Antarctica.
Methods
We included Antarctica in historical biogeographic analyses indirectly, as a component of distance matrices specifying the relative positions of continents, or by specifying Antarctica as a stepping-stone between remaining continents (in LEMAD). We used a newly constructed dated phylogeny of Elmidae to test the performance of these constrained analyses under different parameter settings and geographical scenarios.
Results
Antarctica can be implemented into historical biogeographic analyses via indirect constraints to produce biologically relevant reconstructions when long-distance dispersal events are highly penalized, the maximum number of areas per species is low, and expected extinction rates are high (in LEMAD). Unconstrained models, including those without Antarctica, result in simpler scenarios with fewer biogeographic events and better fit to data. The origin of austral clades of Elmidae post-date the separation of Gondwanan landmasses.
Main Conclusions
Antarctica can be included in historical biogeographic reconstructions under a priori assumptions that (1) it was part of the ancient biogeography of the clade, (2) the taxon has limited dispersal ability, making long-distance dispersal highly unlikely and (3) maximum range size is limited. These assumptions may be biologically justified for many animal groups. Over-water dispersal has been crucial in shaping the modern distribution of austral stream-inhabiting beetles, likely facilitated by ocean currents and dispersal through Antarctica until the Oligocene.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1939-1954 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Journal of Biogeography |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| Early online date | 6 Aug 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Nov 2023 |
Bibliographical note
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSWe are thankful to Cheryl Barr, William Shepard, Andrew Short and Daniel Benda for providing a part of the material studied, and to Emmanuel Arriaga-Varela, Jiawei Shen, Paul Lambert, Dominik Vondráček and David Sadílek for assistance in the field. David Bilton is grateful to Michael Samways, Lee-Anne Benjamin, Danelle Kleinans, Deon Hignet, Ruth-Mary Fisher and Deborah Winterton for assistance with sampling permits over the years. Katie A. Marske (University of Oklahoma) and two anonymous reviewers for the critique and constructive suggestions of the earlier version of this paper. The work of VS was supported by the Grant Agency of the Charles University (GAUK) no. 940717. The work of MF was supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic (DKRVO 2019-2023/5.I.e, National Museum, 00023272) and the National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan (MOST 111-2621-B-110-003). RABL was supported in part by the Core funding for Crown Research Institutes from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's Science and Innovation Group. The fieldwork was covered by permits of the New Zealand Department of Conservation (48017-FAU, 50811-RES, 57754-RES, 69456-FAU, CA-31615-OTH), New South Wales National Parks & Wildlife Service (SL102271), Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (FA 19137), Corporación Nacional Forestal de Chile, and the Western Cape Nature Conservation Board (AAA007-00184, CN44-30-2548, AAA007-00211-0056).
RESEARCH FUNDING
Core funding for Crown Research Institutes from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's Science and Innovation Group
Grant Agency of the Charles University (GAUK). Grant Number: 940717
Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. Grant Number: DKRVO2019-2023/5.I.e
National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan. Grant Number: MOST111-2621-B-110-003
Data Availability Statement
All data and scripts used for the analyses and complete results are in the Zenodo research depository (https://zenodo.org/) under https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6941567. Newly generated DNA sequences were submitted to GenBank under accession numbers OR076770-076873, OR077605-077662, OR078629-078805, and OR095514-095578 (see also Table S1).Keywords
- Antarctica
- aquatic beetles
- Elmidae
- geographical constraints
- Gondwana
- long-distance dispersal
- modal comparison
- southern temperate zone
