a) Autochthonous--evolved to present-day form in an area, e.g., island endemics

b) Allochthonous--evolved elsewhere and arrived to area subsequently, exotics

a) Eastern Asian-eastern North American, e.g., tulip-tree (Liriodendron)

b) Circumpolar (Northern Hemisphere), e.g., linear-leaved sundew (Drosera linearis)

c) Gondwanan (eastern South America-western Africa), e.g., Brocchinia and nearest relative

d) Bipolar (high latitudes in both hemispheres), e.g., sweet-cicely (Osmorhiza)

e) Austral (southern South America-southern Australia/South Pacific), e.g., southern beech (Nothofagus)

a) Evolutionary relict--scattered survivor of a once more dominant and widespread group that largely died out, e.g., magnolias

b) Climatic relict--distribution greatly impacted by climatic or sea level changes, e.g., redwoods

a) Investigators suggested that substantial molecular divergence in nuclear ribosomal DNA sequences between a northeastern North American and Hispaniolan species was result of vicariance, with 20 million year old disjunction occurring by over-land migration of mistletoes when the islands were semi-connected to North America

b) However, mistletoes have highly developed dispersal mechanisms that squirt seeds with sticky goo onto birds' legs; birds must carry such seeds hundreds (thousands?) of miles

c) Numerous bird species overwinter in and south of the Caribbean every year-->long-distance dispersal far more reasonable (researchers didn't bother to explain how the mistletoes exhibit a North American-European species disjunction with considerable lower molecular divergence)

d) Great sequence divergence can be explained differently, too--one or more species not sampled in the study would "fill in the gap" between the Hispaniolan and North American mistletoes, or the northeastern population is not very closely related whereas southern populations would be, and should be sampled (might close the time and sequence divergence gap dramatically)

a) Mitochondrial DNA study of three lizard species including different island populations of one clarified the inter-island migration of the one species

b) Allowed interpretation of variant traits on different islands, some with unique origin and reproductively related, others convergent (e.g., body size changes)

a) Restriction site variation in chloroplast DNA separated northern and southern populations of Tellima grandiflora; northern type presumed to survive at a refugium (isolated spot remaining snow-free during glaciation) on the Queen Charlotte Islands

b) Surprise!--an evident ancient hybridization event led to the "capture" of the chloroplast of a different genus, Mitella, in the northern Tellima populations

c) North-south division has since been revealed in many other Pacific Northwestern plant species, indicating a region-wide floristic division during the Pleistocene

a) Restriction site study of mitochondrial DNA from people around the world were analyzed to infer the pattern of continental diversification and migration

b) Genetically most diverse populations were African; fossil evidence suggested that the "root" of the tree was also in Africa, and phylogenetic relationships of remaining human populations reflected repeated colonization events into other continental areas from Africa-->became known as the "Out of Africa" theory

c) These earlier investigators proposed that all humans arose from a single female ca. 200,000 years ago-->the "Mother Eve" hypothesis

d) Much debate and controversy, and another theory developed ("Multinational Origins") with at least three simultaneous origins of modern humans (polyphyly!); further population genetic studies discounted "Mother Eve"

e) More recent extensive re-analysis of earlier mitochondrian data and more careful evaluation of fossil and anthropological data support the "Out of Africa" theory