eprintid: 1443483 rev_number: 39 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/01/44/34/83 datestamp: 2014-09-01 14:03:09 lastmod: 2022-01-07 23:51:23 status_changed: 2018-06-06 10:55:35 type: article metadata_visibility: show item_issues_count: 0 creators_name: Upchurch, P creators_name: Andres, B creators_name: Butler, RJ creators_name: Barrett, PM title: An analysis of pterosaurian biogeography: implications for the evolutionary history and fossil record quality of the first flying vertebrates ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B04 divisions: C06 divisions: F57 keywords: Dispersal, Diversity, Pterosaur, Sympatry, Treefitter, Vicariance note: © 2014 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis.This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The moral rights of the named author(s) have been asserted. abstract: The biogeographical history of pterosaurs has received very little treatment. Here, we present the first quantitative analysis of pterosaurian biogeography based on an event-based parsimony method (Treefitter). This approach was applied to a phylogenetic tree comprising the relationships of 108 in-group pterosaurian taxa, spanning the full range of this clade's stratigraphical and geographical extent. The results indicate that there is no support for the impact of vicariance or coherent dispersal on pterosaurian distributions. However, this group does display greatly elevated levels of sympatry. Although sampling biases and taxonomic problems might have artificially elevated the occurrence of sympatry, we argue that our results probably reflect a genuine biogeographical signal. We propose a novel model to explain pterosaurian distributions: pterosaurs underwent a series of ‘sweep-stakes’ dispersal events (across oceanic barriers in most cases), resulting in the founding of sympatric clusters of taxa. Examination of the spatiotemporal distributions of pterosaurian occurrences indicates that their fossil record is extremely patchy. Thus, while there is likely to be genuine information on pterosaurian diversity and biogeographical patterns in the current data-set, caution is required in its interpretation. date: 2014-07-28 official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2014.939077 vfaculties: VMPS oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_source: crossref elements_id: 972294 doi: 10.1080/08912963.2014.939077 lyricists_name: Barrett, Paul lyricists_name: Upchurch, Paul lyricists_id: PBARR95 lyricists_id: PUPCH49 full_text_status: public publication: Historical Biology volume: 27 number: 6 pagerange: 697-717 issn: 0891-2963 citation: Upchurch, P; Andres, B; Butler, RJ; Barrett, PM; (2014) An analysis of pterosaurian biogeography: implications for the evolutionary history and fossil record quality of the first flying vertebrates. Historical Biology , 27 (6) pp. 697-717. 10.1080/08912963.2014.939077 <https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2014.939077>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1443483/1/08912963.2014.939077.pdf