Another Approach to the World Biogeography of the Families of Inland Fishes

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Abstract
The analysis of the world distribution pattern of 38 inland fish families is undertaken. I present areography as an approach to assess area-interrelationships among these families. The spatial aspect of quantitative biogeography is studied with classification and ordination methods similar to those used in ecological biogeography, although my aim is not ecological determinism and, besides, the spatial and temporal limits characteristic of ecology are here exceeded. The evolutionary and time-dimensions are also considered, but the approach is historical and has not a strict phylogenetic background. First, cluster analysis is performed from the similarities between areas measured in terms of surface-overlap; then, the inverse approach is developed, namely, cluster analysis of arbitrarily defined geographical areas which are compared through the extent of their common family ranges. The derived pattern of fish distribution does not fit the traditional zoogeographical regions and reflects past geographical connections. Finally, principal coordinates analysis (PRA) from present biotic distances among the arbitrary geographical areas permits to verify statistically that a concordance exists between these biotic distances and past geography, and this shows the biogeographical projection of evolution. The parallelism between this approach and Croizat's method of generalized tracks is discussed, as well as the extension of the approach to other groups of organisms and to taxa of lower rank.

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