Prerequisits:

Second-cycle Bologna degree in the relevant track or a university (level VII) degree. Understanding of biology, ecology, or related natural sciences is recommended.

Content (Syllabus outline):

• Geographical patterns of organismal distribution.
• Vicariance as historical reason for distributions.
• Dispersal and dispersability as organismal trait.
• Global changes and consequential organismal distribution shifts.
• Island biogeography.
• Gene flow, speciation, extinction.
• Endemism.
• Phylogeography as interaction of micro- and macro-evolutionary research.
• Overview of modern biogeographical and phylogeographical approaches.
• Seminar work resulting in a scientific paper.

Readings:

• Lomolino, M. V., Riddle, B. R., Whittaker, R. J., Brown, J. H. (2010). Biogeography. Fourth Edition. Sinauer Associates, Inc.
• Avise, J. C. (2000). Phylogeography: The History and Formation of Species. Harvard University Press.

Objectives and competences:

The course aims to familiarize students with biogeographical concepts. In the first part of the course students will learn through lectures about modern biogeography that has undergone a shift in the 1960s from a descriptive to a predictable science. They will learn about patterns of organismal distribution, form the basic ‘vicariance versus dispersion’ dichotomy to complex mixes of both. They will start to understand the causes of such distribution patterns that are directly linked with dispersal ability of organisms, and lately also with accelerated global changes. Gene flow, endemism, speciation, and extinction are also linked with biogeographical patterns. Students will become familiar with island biogeography research and with the evolving field of phylogeography, a modern science that links micro- and macro-evolutionary research of biogeographic patterns. In the practical part of the course students will pose biogeographical and/or phylogeographical questions on selected organisms, search the literature for genetic and geographic data, then analyse these data in a modern phylogenetic context. The seminar portion of the course will involve studying primary literature and writing a scientific paper discussing the original results and testing specific hypotheses.

Intended learning outcomes:

• Understanding of methodology and concepts in biogeography.
• Acquisition of data needed for modern biogeographical and phylogeographical analyses.
• Application of modern analytical methods for answering specific biogeographical hypotheses, and a seminar that will be presented as a research paper.

Learning and teaching methods:

Types of learning/teaching:

• Frontal teaching
• Work in smaller groups or pair work
• Independent students work

Teaching methods:

• Explanation
• Conversation/discussion/debate

Assessment:

• Long written assignments 100 %

Lecturer’s references:

• Kuntner, M. & Turk, E. 2022. Towards better-informed dispersal probabilities in historical biogeography: Arachnids as a model lineage. Frontiers in Arachnid Science 1: 1058676.
• Čandek, K., Agnarsson, I., Binford, G. J. & Kuntner, M. 2021. Biogeography of long-jawed spiders reveals multiple colonization of the Caribbean. Diversity 13: 622.
• Turk E., Čandek, K., Kralj-Fišer, S., Kuntner M. 2020. Biogeographical history of golden orbweavers : chronology of a global conquest. Journal of biogeography 47: 1333-1344.
• Turk, E., Bond, J.E., Cheng, R.-C., Čandek, K., Hamilton, C.A., Gregorič, M., Kralj-Fišer, S. & Kuntner, M. 2021. A natural colonisation of Asia: phylogenomic and biogeographic history of coin spiders (Araneae: Nephilidae: Herennia). Diversity 13, 515. https://doi.org/10.3390/d13110515
• Xu, X., Su, Y.-S., Ho, S. Y. W., Kuntner, M., Ono, H., Liu, F., Chang, C.-C., Warrit, N., Sivayyapram, V., Aung, K. P. P., Pham, D. S., Norma-Rashid, Y., Li, D. 2021. Phylogenomic analysis of ultraconserved elements resolves the evolutionary and biogeographic history of segmented trapdoor spiders. Systematic Biology 70: 1110-1122