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      Spintharus flavidus in the Caribbean—a 30 million year biogeographical history and radiation of a ‘widespread species’

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          Abstract

          The Caribbean island biota is characterized by high levels of endemism, the result of an interplay between colonization opportunities on islands and effective oceanic barriers among them. A relatively small percentage of the biota is represented by ‘widespread species,’ presumably taxa for which oceanic barriers are ineffective. Few studies have explored in detail the genetic structure of widespread Caribbean taxa. The cobweb spider Spintharus flavidus Hentz, 1850 (Theridiidae) is one of two described Spintharus species and is unique in being widely distributed from northern N. America to Brazil and throughout the Caribbean. As a taxonomic hypothesis, Spintharus “flavidus” predicts maintenance of gene flow among Caribbean islands, a prediction that seems contradicted by known S. flavidus biology, which suggests limited dispersal ability. As part of an extensive survey of Caribbean arachnids (project CarBio), we conducted the first molecular phylogenetic analysis of S. flavidus with the primary goal of testing the ‘widespread species’ hypothesis. Our results, while limited to three molecular loci, reject the hypothesis of a single widespread species. Instead this lineage seems to represent a radiation with at least 16 species in the Caribbean region. Nearly all are short range endemics with several distinct mainland groups and others are single island endemics. While limited taxon sampling, with a single specimen from S. America, constrains what we can infer about the biogeographical history of the lineage, clear patterns still emerge. Consistent with limited overwater dispersal, we find evidence for a single colonization of the Caribbean about 30 million years ago, coinciding with the timing of the GAARLandia landbridge hypothesis. In sum, S. “flavidus” is not a single species capable of frequent overwater dispersal, but rather a 30 my old radiation of single island endemics that provides preliminary support for a complex and contested geological hypothesis.

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          AMPLIFICATION AND DIRECT SEQUENCING OF FUNGAL RIBOSOMAL RNA GENES FOR PHYLOGENETICS

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            RASP (Reconstruct Ancestral State in Phylogenies): a tool for historical biogeography.

            We announce the release of Reconstruct Ancestral State in Phylogenies (RASP), a user-friendly software package for inferring historical biogeography through reconstructing ancestral geographic distributions on phylogenetic trees. RASP utilizes the widely used Statistical-Dispersal Vicariance Analysis (S-DIVA), the Dispersal-Extinction-Cladogenesis (DEC) model (Lagrange), a Statistical DEC model (S-DEC) and BayArea. It provides a graphical user interface (GUI) to specify a phylogenetic tree or set of trees and geographic distribution constraints, draws pie charts on the nodes of a phylogenetic tree to indicate levels of uncertainty, and generates high-quality exportable graphical results. RASP can run on both Windows and Mac OS X platforms. All documentation and source code for RASP is freely available at http://mnh.scu.edu.cn/soft/blog/RASP.
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              Islands as model systems in ecology and evolution: prospects fifty years after MacArthur-Wilson.

              The study of islands as model systems has played an important role in the development of evolutionary and ecological theory. The 50th anniversary of MacArthur and Wilson's (December 1963) article, 'An equilibrium theory of insular zoogeography', was a recent milestone for this theme. Since 1963, island systems have provided new insights into the formation of ecological communities. Here, building on such developments, we highlight prospects for research on islands to improve our understanding of the ecology and evolution of communities in general. Throughout, we emphasise how attributes of islands combine to provide unusual research opportunities, the implications of which stretch far beyond islands. Molecular tools and increasing data acquisition now permit re-assessment of some fundamental issues that interested MacArthur and Wilson. These include the formation of ecological networks, species abundance distributions, and the contribution of evolution to community assembly. We also extend our prospects to other fields of ecology and evolution - understanding ecosystem functioning, speciation and diversification - frequently employing assets of oceanic islands in inferring the geographic area within which evolution has occurred, and potential barriers to gene flow. Although island-based theory is continually being enriched, incorporating non-equilibrium dynamics is identified as a major challenge for the future. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/CNRS.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                PeerJ
                PeerJ
                PeerJ
                PeerJ
                PeerJ
                PeerJ Inc. (San Francisco, USA )
                2167-8359
                19 November 2015
                2015
                : 3
                : e1422
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Biology, University of Vermont , Burlington, VT, USA
                [2 ]Department of Biology, Lewis and Clark College , Portland, OR, USA
                [3 ]Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution , Washington, DC, USA
                Article
                1422
                10.7717/peerj.1422
                4655100
                a6d6c2a9-781c-452d-a724-4132e1647c8b
                © 2015 Dziki et al.

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.

                History
                : 28 August 2015
                : 2 November 2015
                Funding
                Funded by: National Science Foundation
                Award ID: DEB-1314749
                Award ID: DEB-1050187-1050253
                Funded by: NSF
                Award ID: DBI-1349205
                Funded by: Smithsonian Institution 2013 SI Barcode Network
                Funded by: UVM APLE grant
                Funding for this work comes from National Science Foundation (DEB-1314749 and DEB-1050187-1050253) to I Agnarsson and G Binford and NSF (DBI-1349205) to D Barrington, I Agnarsson and CW Kilpatrick. Additional funds came from the Smithsonian Institution 2013 SI Barcode Network to JA Coddington and I Agnarsson. Development of this project was further supported by a UVM APLE grant to A Dziki. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Biodiversity
                Biogeography
                Entomology
                Taxonomy
                Zoology

                spintharus,gaarlandia,theridiidae,evolution,caribbean,adaptive radiation,dispersal,zoology,arachnology

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