title: Comment on "An update of Wallace's zoogeographic regions of the world".
abstract: Holt et al. (Report, 4 January 2013, p. 74) propose substantial modifications of Wallace's long-standing zoogeographic regions based on clustering of a pairwise similarity matrix of vertebrate assemblages. We worry about their compromised use of phylogenies and show that a fundamental point of their analysis--i.e., the delineation of new realms--is only weakly supported by their results and conceptually flawed.
authors.affiliation: Biodiversity, Macroecology and Conservation Biogeography Group, Faculty for Forestry and Forest Ecology, Büsgenweg 1, University of Göttingen, 37077 Göttingen, Germany. hkreft@uni-goettingen.de
authors.forename: Holger
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kreft
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jetz
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002980:Climate; D010802:Phylogeny