Seaweed phylogeography from 1994 to 2014: An overview

Abstract

Molecular phylogeographic approaches employed for studying genetic diversity and evolution of seaweeds experienced noticeable growth since the mid-1990s and have greatly expanded our understanding of factors and processes contributing to biodiversity, adaptation, and population genetic variation of seaweeds. Herein, we present a numerical synthesis of 126 published references on seaweed phylogeography during the past two decades. We summarize the progress, research hotspots, regional distribution of outputs, potential deficiencies, and future tendencies in this field at a global scale. We also highlight the importance of integrating a statistically rigorous and comparative phylogeographic framework with species distribution models (SDM) and model-based phylogeographic inferences, when exploring cryptic speciation and evolution of seaweeds in response to global climate change, environmental shift, and human interference.