Track analysis beyond panbiogeography

Abstract Aim Panbiogeography, as originally formulated by Léon Croizat, assumed that vicariance and range expansion are the only biogeographical processes needed to explain general biotic distributions. This was in opposition to the prevailing paradigm at the time, known as dispersalism, which postulates that organisms evolve in ‘centres of origin’ from pre‐existing species and then randomly cross barriers to occupy new areas, where they adapt and evolve into new species. The panbiogeographic approach is implemented through track analysis, which consists of three basic steps: constructing individual tracks for two or more different taxa, obtaining generalized tracks where two or more different individual tracks coincide, and identifying nodes in the areas where two or more generalized tracks intersect. In this synthesis I discuss some criticisms that have been directed at panbiogeography and track analysis. Location Global. Methods I evaluated the papers with track analyses that have been published in the last few decades and the critiques provided by several authors. Results Most of the critiques have been directed at the original panbiogeographic approach, with its complete or almost complete reliance on vicariance explanations. Track analyses published in the 1980s and 1990s usually applied a strict vicariance explanation; however, most of the analyses published in the last 10 years or so consider both vicariance and dispersal to explain the observed patterns. Main conclusions Although Croizat's metaphor ‘Earth and life evolve together’ may be a useful guide to understanding broad, general patterns, the relationships between Earth history and life are more complex because biotic history is reticulate. To reduce our explanations exclusively to vicariance or dispersal is misguided. We should integrate both processes into a dispersal–vicariance model that allows us to understand the evolution of biotic distributions, incorporating the dating of the lineages and the identification of the cenocrons (sets of taxa that share the same biogeographical history) that coexist within biotas. In the framework of this model, panbiogeographic track analysis is a useful method for identifying biotas, and may constitute the first step of an evolutionary biogeographical analysis.