A review of phylogeography: biotic and abiotic factors

Abstract

Phylogeography expounds population genetics and phylogenetics in straightforward geographic manner, providing good framework in revealing the evolutionary background of the species. It also records the spatial distribution of genetic lineages which are outcome of population structure mechanisms such as population contraction, population expansion, gene movements and climatic oscillations shaped by climate fluctuations and the physical landscape. The environmental heterogeneity abets organism colonization into new sites and induces adaptive genetic changes in them by creating separation at specific loci. Phylogeography encodes the spatial and temporal distribution of population structure in relation to their ecological and biological requirements which can decipher evolutionary processes. Modern tools that generate genome-wide sequence data are now available which allow us to understand how evolutionary processes affect the spatial distribution of different kinds of individuals and also to model the future spatial distribution of species with respect to climate change.