Historical Biogeography: An Alternative Formalization

Abstract

All clues or rules used to resolve centers of origin and dispersal without reference to general patterns of vicariance and sympatry are rejected as aprioristic. Included as a rejectable apriorism is Hennig''s Progression Rule. Unencumbered by aprioristic dispersal, historical biogeography is the discovery and interpretation, with reference to causal geographic factors, of the vicariance shown by the monophyletic groups resolved by phylogenetic (cladistic) systematics.