Islands contribute disproportionately high amounts of evolutionary diversity in passerine birds
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Holt, BG
Jonsson, K
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Island systems generally have fewer species than continental areas, due to their small size and geographical isolation. Low island diversity reduces the possibility of exportation of island lineages and island systems are not thought to have a major influence on the build-up of continental diversity. However, the view that islands represent the end of the colonization road has recently been challenged and islands do represent the origin of some specific continental lineages. Here we assess the net contribution of island systems to global diversity patterns of passerine birds, using a complete phylogeny (5,949 species), biogeographical regionalization and null-model comparisons. We show that, in contrast to major continental regions, island regions export relatively more evolutionary lineages than would be expected based on current distributional patterns. This result challenges a central paradigm in island biogeography and changes our perception of the relative importance of islands for the build-up of global diversity.
Date Issued
2015-10-05
Date Acceptance
2015-09-01
Citation
Nature Communications, 6
ISSN
2041-1723
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Journal / Book Title
Nature Communications
Volume
6
Copyright Statement
© 2015 The Authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
8538