New study affirms Darwin's theory of "jump dispersal"

A new study has proved that Darwin's 'jump dispersal' theory that was refuted years ago, is actually dominant in the geological timescale as much as human timescale.

The study by Nicholas J. Matzke, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, tested the Vicariance theory and the 'jump dispersal' theory of how species came to live where they do and found strong evidence for jump dispersal, especially for island species.

Matzke's study used data from many species that live on the Hawaiian Islands and on other archipelagos and found that jump dispersal was able to explain the biogeography of the species with a far greater statistical probability than through the vicariance method and suggested that researchers need to include jump dispersal in order to accurately reconstruct evolutionary history.

Charles Darwin had hypothesized that species could cross oceans and other vast distances on vegetation rafts, icebergs, or in the case of plant seeds, in the plumage of birds. But then biologists found this too fanciful and instead Vicariance theory was adopted that said "land bridges" were used when continents were contiguous.

The study was published in the journal Systematic Biology.