ASSESSING BIOGEOGRAPHIC PATTERNS WITHIN EUBLASTOIDEA (BLASTOZOA: ECHINODERMATA)

The Eublastoidea are a long-lived Paleozoic echinoderm clade with a global distribution. The long temporal range includes many major environmental perturbations throughout Earth’s history. Major geographic areas were defined for the Paleozoic paleocontinents and BioGeoBEARS (Matzke 2013) was used to assess species and ancestral ranges. BioGeoBEARS allows for the testing of multiple biogeographic models for comparison of model fit to the dataset. These initial results suggests the majority of speciation within the clade was through dispersal events. Here, I will compare the biogeographic analysis with major biotic and abiotic events in the Paleozoic to explore potential reasons behind the large amount of dispersal events in this clades history. Additionally, the areas had to be rather restricted given the nature of the analysis. As this group is largely a North American/Laurentian clade I work to examine the dynamics specifically within this continent to uncover patterns of dispersal within the Laurentian species. Analyses such as these shed light on global events and the effects on species distribution through time.