Modern historical biogeography is a very different discipline than  at its inception. Because of advances in evolutionary and molecular phylogenetic methods over the last two decades, biogeographers can now investigate traditional questions, such as taxonomic origins and geographic patterns of diversification and extinction, within the context of population genetics and robust phylogenetic systematics. Given these recent advances in the resolution of historical patterns and processes, and the current focus of studies on specific taxa or regions, it is important to provide a venue to synthesize different perspectives on patterns and processes. This symposium will be focused on comparing the biogeographic patterns and processes that predominate in different major biomes, across a variety of animal taxa.

This symposium will include presentations from scientists working on the historical biogeography of both vertebrate and invertebrate animals and includes marine, terrestrial, and freshwater systems. Comparisons of these systems will highlight the importance of the different patterns and processes that predominate in different habitats. This symposium will bring together established scientist and researchers early in their careers from around the world, whose question-driven research focuses on testing hypotheses about patterns and processes in historical biogeography. The symposium will be followed by a biogeographic “Phylogenetics for Dummies Workshop” (an annual workshop supported by the division of Systematics and Evolutionary Biology, open to all conference attendees, intended to educate participants on the use of phylogenetic biogeographic techniques).

List of speakers (titles will be added as they are finalized):

John Benzie (Professor Emeritus, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, Queensland, Australia)

Ana Carnaval (Ph.D. candidate, University of Chicago)

Joel Cracraft (Curator, American Museum of Natural History, New York)

Steve Gaines (Professor, University of California at Santa Barbara)

Robert Guralnick (Assistant Professor of Environmental, Population and Organismic Biology at the University of Colorado at Boulder)

Haris Lessios (Staff Scientist, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama)

Rick Mayden (Endowed Chair of Natural Sciences, Saint Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri)

Craig Moritz (Professor and Director, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley)

Gustav Paulay (Assistant Curator, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville)

Jose Tello (Ph.D. Candidate, University of Illinois at Chicago)

Geerat Vermeij (Professor of Geology, University of California at Davis)

Suzanne Williams (Postdoctoral Fellow, The Natural History Museum, London, England)

Bob Zink (Breckenridge Chair in Ornithology, University of Minnesota)