A review of marine phylogeography in southern Africa

South African Journal of Science

 
 
Field Value
 
Title A review of marine phylogeography in southern Africa
 
Creator Teske, Peter R. von der Heyden, Sophie McQuaid, Christopher D. Barker, Nigel P.
 
Subject Evolutionary Biology; Phylogeography phylogeographic break; dispersal barrier; asymmetrical gene flow; marine vicariance; cryptic speciation; physiological adaptation; climate change
Description The southern African marine realm is located at the transition zone between the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific biomes. Its biodiversity is particularly rich and comprises faunal and floral elements from the two major oceanic regions, as well as a large number of endemics. Within this realm, strikingly different biota occur in close geographic proximity to each other, and many of the species with distributions spanning two or more of the region’s marine biogeographic provinces are divided into evolutionary units that can often only be distinguished on the basis of genetic data. In this review, we describe the state of marine phylogeography in southern Africa, that is, the study of evolutionary relationships at the species level, or amongst closely related species, in relation to the region’s marine environment. We focus particularly on coastal phylogeography, where much progress has recently been made in identifying phylogeographic breaks and explaining how they originated and are maintained. We also highlight numerous shortcomings that should be addressed in the near future. These include: the limited data available for commercially important organisms, particularly offshore species; the paucity of oceanographic data for nearshore areas; a dearth of studies based on multilocus data; and the fact that studying the role of diversifying selection in speciation has been limited to physiological approaches to the exclusion of genetics. It is becoming apparent that the southern African marine realm is one of the world’s most interesting environments in which to study the evolutionary processes that shape not only regional, but also global patterns of marine biodiversity.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor Rhodes University
Date 2011-05-26
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajs.v107i5/6.514
 
Source South African Journal of Science; Vol 107, No 5/6 (2011); 11 pages 1996-7489 0038-2353
 
Language eng
 
Relation
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https://journals.sajs.aosis.co.za/index.php/sajs/article/view/514/711 https://journals.sajs.aosis.co.za/index.php/sajs/article/view/514/712 https://journals.sajs.aosis.co.za/index.php/sajs/article/view/514/674 https://journals.sajs.aosis.co.za/index.php/sajs/article/downloadSuppFile/514/2259 https://journals.sajs.aosis.co.za/index.php/sajs/article/downloadSuppFile/514/2260 https://journals.sajs.aosis.co.za/index.php/sajs/article/downloadSuppFile/514/2261
 
Coverage southern Africa Miocene to present —
Rights Copyright (c) 2011 Peter R. Teske, Sophie von der Heyden, Christopher D. McQuaid, Nigel P. Barker https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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