Phylogeography and evolution of carnivores in the Sunda Shelf: Felidae and Viverridae as models for Pleistocene migrations

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The Sunda Shelf in South-East Asia is characterised by a wide range of habitat differentiation with a high biodiversity, and a very diversified geological and palaeontological history. Up to now the current distribution pattern of mammal taxa has been explained by land bridges existing during glaciations in the late Pliocene and Pleistocene. However, recent phylogenetic studies cast doubts on the conventional hypothesis of free migration and rather strengthen the alternative view, that the recent distribution patterns are a result of the interaction of topology and habitat quality in relation to the species specific abilities to use the exposed shelf for migration. Accordingly, habitat specialists are less inclined to migrate between islands, if land bridges were dominated by differing and changing vegetation types. A phylogenetic analysis of populations from different Sunda Islands should reveal greater genetic distances among habitat specialists than among habitat generalists. To test this hypothesis, this study focuses on the phylogeography of two families of the order Carnivora, Felidae and Viverridae, because both families are on top of the trophic pyramid and thus play a key role for the ecosystem and they both include habitat specialists as well as generalistic species.