•
Spiders have no wings, they are
comparatively small animals and their ability to migrate is very restricted.
This is why, we suppose they inhabit the same (or almost the same) territory
where they first time appeared. In this map you can see geographic distribution
of Intruda signata – very common
ground spider from Australia. By triangles and squares marked findings of some
new species from the same genus. Total picture let us think that homeland of
all these spiders is Australia.
For some very close each-other groups we have very
interesting distribution like this. Here you can see two close relative genera Callilepis and Eilica. You can see that when one genus – Callilepis – is distributed exclusively in the Northern hemisphere,
the other – Eilica – exclusively in
Southern one. But if we remember the Continental Drift theory, everything get
its simple explanation.
It becomes clear that these two close relatives were
separated at a time when pra-mother of all continents – Pangaea – spliced into
two mega-continents (that later also were broken down). This diagram helps us
understand also why most of the Australian spider species were never found in
New Zealand and vice versa, like on the next maps.
This is distribution of spiders genus Anzacia that is very common in
Australia, but never in New Zealand.
And this is a distribution of New Zealand spiders of
genus Matua.
Google map, GIS, ArcCIS, Gazeter – are invaluable
tools in such kind studies. Google map also let us to do analysis of our data
on the background of additional information such as continental movement,
century climate trends, and much other, which help us to draw conclusions about
origin, evolution, and effect of different factors on life (in my case – ground
spiders).
This is really fascinating--certainly looking at the geo-spatial element here would add to the understanding of ground spiders and their habitats, range and so forth. I am always amazed at how much Darwin got right about evolution based on his limited travels (though an impressive 6-year journey at the time), yet he pieced together so much of the story of evolution based on this limited data set. Btw, it looks like putting some a map or two on Google Earth -- with a few pictures and so forth as annotations -- would be a great way to explore DH in a topic you are clearly an expert in.
ReplyDeleteI imagine that having your students do a mapping project on the origin and/or migration of species would prove to be quite engaging for them!
ReplyDeleteGreat work! Your article seems very interesting. I think these tools would be very helpful for students who are enthusiastic to work and do some relevant research in the biology field.
ReplyDelete