Evolutionary biogeography of the Revillagigedo Archipelago, Mexico

ABSTRACT

The biotic assembly of the Revillagigedo Archipelago, Mexico, was analysed under an evolutionary biogeographic framework. We undertook a parsimony analysis of endemicity with progressive character elimination of 194 plant and animal species, which allowed us to identify the archipelago as a complex area or node where Nearctic and Neotropical biotic components overlap. We undertook a cladistic biogeographic analysis using the phylogenetic information of 42 taxon-area cladograms, from which one general-area cladogram was obtained: (Revillagigedo, (Sonoran, (Baja California, (Veracruzan, Pacific Lowlands)))). These results suggest that the Revillagigedo Archipelago may be classified as a province, although we prefer to keep it as a district of the Pacific Lowlands province. We identified two cenocrons (temporally integrated set of taxa) that can be dated to the Pliocene–Pleistocene: one Nearctic that dispersed from the Baja California Peninsula, and another Neotropical where the species dispersed from the Pacific coast to the islands. The geological information and the general-area cladograms allowed us to propose a geobiotic scenario for the archipelago where the islands are probably the result of volcanism associated with the oceanic Mathematician Ridge, and the arrival of the cenocrons to the archipelago may have occurred during the Pliocene–Pleistocene, after the islands were available for colonisation.

KEYWORDS:

• biotic components
• dispersal
• endemism
• island biogeography

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00222933.2023.2203337.

Acknowledgements

We appreciate the useful comments by two anonymous reviewers that greatly helped improve our original manuscript. We also thank Luis A. Sánchez-Gonzalez and Susana Ocegueda Cruz for checking the information on the bird and plant species, respectively, of the Revillagigedo Archipelago. The first author thanks the Posgrado en Ciencias Biológicas of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) for academic training and logistic support, and the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT) for a scholarship (CVU: 444876). This paper is part of the requirements for obtaining a doctoral degree at the Posgrado en Ciencias Biológicas, UNAM, of the first author. Support from PAPIIT project IN218520 (DGAPA, UNAM) is acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Geolocation information

Revillagigedo Archipelago is located in the Northeast Pacific, approximately 720 km west of Colima and 450 km south of Baja California Sur, Mexico.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México [IN218520].