Previous phylogenies of extant short‐faced bats (Chiroptera Stenodermatina) supported either two colonization events from the mainland to the Antilles, or reverse colonization, but lacked both fossil data and statistical modelling of biogeography. …
The extensive postglacial mammal losses in the West Indies provide an opportunity to evaluate extinction dynamics, but limited data have hindered our ability to test hypotheses. Here, we analyze the tempo and dynamics of extinction using a novel data …
Islands are ideal systems to model temporal changes in biodiversity and reveal the influence of humans on natural communities. Although theory predicts biodiversity on islands tends towards an equilibrium value, the recent extinction of large …
Paleontological and neontological systematics seek to answer evolutionary questions with different data sets. Phylogenies inferred for combined extant and extinct taxa provide novel insights into the evolutionary history of life. Primates have an …
The mechanisms underlying the high extant biodiversity in the Neotropics have been controversial since the 19th century. Support for the influence of period-specific changes on diversification often rests on detecting more speciation events during a …
The earliest record of plant visiting in bats dates to the Middle Miocene of La Venta, the world's most diverse tropical palaeocommunity. Palynephyllum antimaster is known from molars that indicate nectarivory. Skull length, an important indicator of …
Morphological characters are indispensable in phylogenetic analyses for understanding the pattern, process, and tempo of evolution. If characters are independent and free of systematic errors, then combining as many different kinds of characters as …
Ecological factors such as changing climate on land and interspecific competition have been debated as possible causes of postglacial Caribbean extinction. These hypotheses, however, have not been tested against a null model of climate‐driven …
The West Indian mammal fauna has played a key role in the development of biogeographic ideas for over a century, but a synthesis explaining regional patterns of mammal diversity and distribution in a historical framework has not emerged. We review …
Although the natural history of the Caribbean is better understood now than ever before, a general biogeographic explanation for the peculiar faunal composition of the islands remains elusive. New molecular phylogenetic and divergence analyses …