Phylogeography
Résumé
Phylogeography endeavors to understand the processes that underlie the geographical distribution of genetic variation within and among closely related species. This chapter explains what phylogeography is and presents methodological and conceptual developments in this field. During the first decades of phylogeography, most studies involved analyses of exclusively animal mtDNA. The wide use of this cytoplasmic genome in phylogeographic studies is explained by the fact that it has several phylogenetically favorable properties. Statistical phylogeographical methods generally fall into one of two categories: those that take a summary-statistic approach versus likelihood or Bayesian analyses. Comparative phylogeographic studies can reveal ways in which entire communities or assemblages are structured by shared responses to a common past and unique species-specific historical event. Since its beginning, comparative phylogeography uses concordance in patterns of genetic variation as a criterion for evaluating hypotheses.