Methods of biogeographic analysis and their application to the distribution of Mexican gymnosperms

Abstract

Biogeography is a discipline included in comparative biology that studies the distribution of organisms

the distributional patterns of organisms are analyzed through the application of different methods, depending on the question formulated. In this work the principles and advantages of some of these methods when the the principles and advantages of some of these methods when they are applied to the geographic distribution of the gymnosperms of Mexico are presented, and the convenience and applicability of each method in relation to the distributional range of the species is discussed. Particularly, in the case of Mexican gymnosperms, parsimony analysis of endemicity and panbiogeography have the disadvantage that their methods do not include those species with restricted ranges, whereas cladistic biogeography only includes taxa with phylogenetic information. In contrast, areograpky and predicted distributions consider all the species, independently of their distributional range and availability of phylogenetic information. It is concluded that the different bio-geographic methods can be used under the same analysis as complementary phases or components, despite the fact that some of them have been considered as antagonist research programs. This kind of studies generates valuable information that permits to extend the knowledge about the history of Mexican biota and to increase the knowledge on the biogeography of Mexican gymnosperms.