Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

EVOLUTION

Biogeography across the ages

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 2, pages 412–413 (2018)Cite this article

Subjects

Allowing biogeographical data to evolve at varying rates on a globe, not a plane, reveals new insights into the origin and dispersal of dinosaurs. The method could also be applied to manifold organisms, from humans to influenza viruses.

Tyrannosaurs and influenza viruses are very different. The first is a group of gigantic dinosaurian predators from the distant past; the second, an evolving cloud of pathogenic particles that can’t grow or metabolize. Yet, their evolutionary histories have more in common than we might expect. Both groups of organisms (if you grant that status to viruses) are or were distributed across the globe. But how do these distributions arise? As they report in Nature Ecology & Evolution, O’Donovan et al.1 have developed a model of evolution in which shifting rates of change are distributed on the surface of a sphere. They use this technique to show that peripatric speciation was crucial to establishing the dominance of dinosaurs.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Projecting a globe onto a plane distorts the Earth's landmasses, as in this Mercator projection.

References

  1. O’Donovan, C., Meade, A. & Venditti, C. Nat. Ecol. Evol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0454-6 (2018).

  2. Lemey, P., Rambaut, A., Drummond, A. J. & Suchard, M. A. PLoS Comput. Biol. 5, e1000520 (2009).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Grafarend, E. W. & Krumm, F. W. Map Projections: Cartographic Information Systems (Springer, New York, 2006).

  4. Bouckaert, R. PeerJ 4, e2406 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Lull, R. S. Am. J. Sci. 29, 1–39 (1910).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Nopcsa, B. F. Q. J. Geol. Soc. 90, 76–140 (1934).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Sereno, P. C. Science 284, 2137–2147 (1999).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Marsicano, C. A., Irmis, R. B., Mancuso, A. C., Mundil, R. & Chemale, F. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 113, 509–513 (2016).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Roger, J. Buffon: A Life in Natural History 1st edn (Cornell Univ. Press, Ithaca, 1997).

  10. Darwin, C. The Origin of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition Ch 13 (Signet Classics, New York, 2003).

  11. Mayr, E. in Evolution as a Process (eds Huxley, J., Hardy, A. C. & Ford, E. B.) 157–180 (Unwin Brothers, London, 1954).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Honors College , Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, 59717, USA

    Chris Organ

Authors
  1. Chris Organ
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chris Organ.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Organ, C. Biogeography across the ages. Nat Ecol Evol 2, 412–413 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0486-6

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0486-6

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing