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Born 200 years ago, January 8th, 1823, in Wales, United Kingdom, Alfred Russel Wallace was a naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist, and a man of many other talents. Wallace is famously known for conceiving the idea of evolution by natural selection independently of Charles Darwin. Wallace is also often considered the “father of biogeography”, after his extensive fieldwork and exciting discoveries in the Amazon River basin and the Malay Archipelago.
In celebration of this milestone, this Collection from the Nature Portfolio brings together articles that reflect on Wallace’s legacy and explore how his findings shape evolutionary and biogeographical research to this day.
Born 200 years ago, the evolutionary biologist experienced many setbacks during his career — none more severe than when he headed home with his precious collections from Brazil.
Wallace, who independently discovered the theory of evolution, relied on local knowledge to craft his seminal work on species ranges in the Amazon. Now, the region’s Indigenous scientists have taken charge of their research using this and other cross-cultural tools.
A stochastic, age-structured model incorporating hunter-gatherer demographic rates and palaeoecological reconstructions of carrying capacity predicts that a founding population of 1,300–1,550 individuals was necessary to survive the initial peopling of Pleistocene Australia, New Guinea, Tasmania and neighbouring islands (Sahul).
New research suggests that groups of ~130 modern humans at minimum undertook planned expeditions to colonise Sahul via a northern route. However, the necessity of more evidence to test this model reflects a need for change in the way we investigate the population history of this region.
Songbirds originated in Australia and have now diversified into approximately 5,000 species found across the world. Here, Moyle et al. combine phylogenomic and biogeographic analyses to show that songbird diversification was associated with the formation of islands providing a route out of Australia.
There has been substantial debate of how hominins colonized Australasia through Wallacea, including their ability to utilize marine vs. terrestrial resources. Here, Roberts et al. use stable carbon and oxygen isotopes to reconstruct temporal shifts in the diets of early human inhabitants of Alor and Timor.
Advanced ecological modelling reveals how Sahul (Australia and New Guinea) was first peopled, suggesting the most probable routes and surprisingly rapid early settlement of this continent by anatomically modern humans starting 50,000 to 75,000 years ago.
Islands and mountaintops are often considered evolutionary dead ends. Using whole genomic data of 18 bird species and demographic models, the authors show that populations become isolated at high elevations, but disjunct montane populations maintain gene flow and thus the capacity for further colonisation.
Bank et al. investigate the phylogenetic relationships of all major lineages of leaf insects, identify 15 to 20 putatively new species, and show these insects likely originated in the Australasian/Pacific region with dispersal to the mainland. This phylogenetic work is the first to include all major groups of leaf insects and highlights cryptic diversity.
Terrestrial animals can be classified into distinct biogeographic regions, but less is known about what shapes these global boundaries. Here, the authors identify geological and climatic factors that determine the separation of realms through time.
A global analysis finds that tectonics, climate and mountains have jointly shaped the evolution of the world's terrestrial biodiversity into distinct biogeographical regions.
There is currently no consensus on how best to identify and delimit biogeographical regions. Here the authors develop a network-based approach incorporating complex presence–absence patterns that can successfully identify commonly recognized biogeographical regions, and apply it to two large-scale data sets of plants and amphibians.
Vertebrate frugivores play important ecological roles. Here, the authors analyse a global dataset on plants and birds and find that plant-frugivore networks are more dissimilar, yet structurally consistent, across ecoregion and biome boundaries.
Despite the fact that large animals and microorganisms face different environmental and anthropogenic pressures, this study finds that marine biogeographic patterns are similar for organisms in different kingdoms.
Using species range data, phylogenies, and fossil records of thousands of extinct and extant terrestrial vertebrates, He et al. quantify temporal changes in beta dissimilarities among zoogeographical regions surrounding the Tibetan Plateau during the Cenozoic era. This study shows how geological events underpin the evolutionary history of zoogeographical regions.
After generating a dataset on plumage colouration for over 4,500 bird species, the authors show that tropical species are more colourful than temperate species, confirming a long-held but difficult-to-prove belief.
Arms races between herbivores and plants have likely affected their evolutionary histories, which could have led to their high diversity. Allio et al. find that butterflies shifting to new host plants have more adaptive molecular signatures across their genomes and show repeated bursts of speciation rates.
Using biogeographical and phylogenetic data, it is shown that molecular trees fit species geographical data better than trees inferred from morphology, and that these differences are not simply due to better tree resolution.
Phylogenomic analysis of voles in the Hengduan Mountains of China reveal two distinct genetic lineages emerging from distinct Eurasian migration events.
Toxic and venomous species often have conspicuous warning colouration that is mimicked by harmless species. Here, Davis Rabosky et al. combine phylogenetic and biogeographic analyses to reveal that mimicry of venomous coral snakes has been a major driver of snake colour evolution in the New World.
Here, the authors study adaptation to altitude in 518 whole genomes from two species of tropical butterflies. They find repeated genetic differentiation within species, little molecular parallelism between these species, and introgression from closely related species, concluding that standing genetic variation promotes parallel local adaptation.
Islands generally have fewer species than continental areas and are not thought to contribute significantly to continental diversity. Here, the authors show islands can be more dynamic and export many more evolutionary lineages than expected based on contemporary diversity patterns.
Tomoko Hamabata et al. used transcriptomics to reveal lack of genome-wide genetic diversity and a significant accumulation of deleterious genes in the endangered species of oceanic island. These genomic changes may affect overall plant fitness and potentially contribute to extinction risks of these isolated species.
Gao, Liu, Zhang, Li et al. report the complete plastid genome assemblies for 22 closely related species of rice, generating a map of genomic structural variation. They show that plastid gene evolution has helped rice evolve to diverse habitats with different levels of sunlight.