Phylogeny and biogeography of Caribbean mammals

Abstract

Vicariance and dispersal hypotheses have been proposed over the last two hundred years to explain the distribution, diversity, and faunal composition of the Caribbean biota. Despite great advances in understanding the geological history of the region, recent biogeographical reviews have not used historical biogeographical methods. In this paper I review the taxonomy, distribution and phylogeny of all Cenozoic Caribbean non-volant mammals and four bat lineages, and present reconciled trees for available phylogenies. Dates available from the fossil record and hypotheses of divergence based on molecular phylogenetic studies are also included in general assessments of fit between proposed geological models and Caribbean mammal diversification. The evidence posited in mammalian phylogenies does not add to the argument of dispersal vs. vicariance. One previously unidentified temporal pattern, the colonization of the Caribbean by South American mammals between the Palaeocene and the Middle Miocene, accounts for the distribution and phylogeny of the majority of lineages studied. Choloepodine and megalocnine sloths, hystricognath rodents, and primates all arrived during this window of colonization. Of these, megalocnine sloths, hystricognath rodents, Brachyphylla and allied bats, Stenodermatina bats, and primates fit the pattern of divergence from the mainland implied by the Gaarlandia hypothesis. Sloths, rodents and primates also roughly fit the timing of arrival to the Caribbean implied by Gaarlandia. The remaining taxa show contradictory dates of divergence according to molecular clock estimates, and no taxa fit the predicted timing and pattern of divergence among Antillean landmasses under the Gaarlandia model. Choloepodine sloths, murid rodents, insectivorans, mormoopids, and natalids show patterns of divergence from the mainland that are inconsistent with the Gaarlandia hypothesis and seem to require taxon-specific biogeographical explanations.

Rodents of the Caribbean: origin and diversification of hutias unravelled by next-generation museomics

“…This suggests either (i) a vicariant event between eastern (Hispaniola) and western (Bahamas, Cuba, Jamaica) hutias or (ii) stepping stone colonizations from east to west. Divergence dates between hutias and echimyids (node B: 16.5 Ma) as well as among hutias (node F: 9.4 Ma) is compatible with a westward vicariance hypothesis as already suggested for Caribbean sloths [14,18]. This vicariant pattern was likely due to reduced connections among Carribean islands during the Mid and Late Miocene and the Windward Passage opening between Cuba and Hispaniola [14,15,19].…”

“…Our results have major implications about the biogeographic origin of terrestrial fauna of the West Indies. These divergence ages clearly postdate those involved by the GAARlandia vicariance hypothesis [17], which assumes an Eocene/Oligocene (figure 2) connection between South America and the West Indies, in relation to both a continental landbridge and a sea-level drop [14][15][16]. Our results suggest instead that an echimyid-like ancestor colonized the Greater Antilles during the Early Miocene when the land bridge was fully submerged.…”

The West Indies as a laboratory of biogeography and evolution

“…mammals (Davalos 2004 In an early attempt to assess the timing of dispersal events, Hedges et al (1992) used calibrated immunological distances between island forms and their mainland relatives to estimate the ages of island taxa (Hedges 1996a(Hedges -c, 2001). Immunological distance between two taxa is based on the cross-reaction between antibodies formed in response to antigens from one taxon and the other (Maxson & Maxson 1986).…”

Systematics and distribution of the giant fossil barn owls of the West Indies (Aves: Strigiformes: Tytonidae)

“…The West Indies (in which we include the Bahamas), in particular the Cuban archipelago, was inhabited during part of the Quaternary by a diverse array of large predatory birds (Arredondo 1976;Olson 1978;Olson & Hilgartner 1982;Arredondo 1984;Arredondo & Olson 1994;Steadman & Hilgartner 1999;Arredondo & Arredondo 2002a, 2002bSuárez & Emslie 2003;Suárez 2004a;Suárez & Olson 2007;Olson 2008;Suárez & Olson 2009) adapted for feeding on an equally diverse assemblage of endemic mammals (see Allen 1942;Angerbjörn 1985;Woods 1990;Alcover et al 1998;White & MacPhee 2001;Dávalos 2004;Silva Taboada et al 2008) and other vertebrates. Many of these species, both prey and predator, are now extinct (Olson 1978;Morgan & Woods 1986;Alcover & MacMinn 1994;Turvey 2009).…”