ABSTRACT
Over a career that challenged many concepts held as conventional wisdom to other biologists, Donn Rosen formulated a number of insightful ideas, the impact of which have inspired and laid the groundwork for many contemporary scientists. His ideas are still relevant and controversial, as evidenced by the content of this volume. One topic of particular interest to Rosen was the complex biogeographic history of Central America and the Caribbean, an interest that was inuenced by the writings of Leon Croizat (e.g., Croizat 1962), and that eventually led to publication of Rosen’s seminal paper in biogeographic theory and practice (Rosen 1976). Rosen’s (1985) visit to the University of Miami, where he presented the list of axioms guiding contributions to this volume, and an earlier visit to the University of Southern California were crucial to the development of ideas for a vicariance explanation for the distribution of anoles (Dactyloidae) presented in Guyer and Savage (1986). Here, we return to the same
11.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 169 11.2 Do Endemic South American Norops Predate the Closure of the Portal? ................................................................................................. 173 11.3 How Long Has Norops Occupied the Mainland? ......................................... 176 11.4 Where Did Mainland Norops Originate and What Is the Pattern
of Dispersal across the Panamanian Portal? ................................................ 177 Acknowledgments .................................................................................................. 178 Appendix 11.1 Phylogenetic Sampling Methods. ................................................. 179 Appendix 11.2 Taxon Sampling and Location Data ........................................... 180 References .............................................................................................................. 182
group of Neotropical squamates and the explanation of vicariance versus dispersal for distribution patterns of the genus Norops across Central and South America. Our contribution evaluates Rosen’s notions that the axioms “all distributions result from vicariance” and “all distributions result from dispersal” inhibit scientic progress.
