DOI: 10.5061/dryad.0k6djh9zv
title: Summary table and references of studies of the biogeography of the West Indies found in the Web of Science Core Collection database

description: Studies of the biogeography of the West Indies are numerous but not all
 taxonomic groups have received the same attention. Many of the
 contributions to this field have historically focused on terrestrial
 vertebrates from a perspective closely linked to the classical theory of
 island biogeography. However, some recent works have questioned whether
 some of the assumptions of this theory are too simplistic. In this review,
 we compiled information about the West Indies biogeography based on an
 extensive and rigorous literature search. While we offer some background
 of the main hypotheses that explain the origin of the Caribbean biota, our
 main purpose here is to highlight divergent diversification patterns
 observed in terrestrial versus aquatic groups of the West Indian biota and
 also to shed light on the unbalanced number of studies covering the
 biogeography of these groups of organisms. We use an objective method to
 compile existing information in the field and produce a rigorous
 literature review. Our results show that most of the relevant literature
 in the field is related to the study of terrestrial organisms (mainly
 vertebrates) and only a small portion covers aquatic groups. Specifically,
 livebearing fishes show interesting deviations from the species-area
 relationship predicted by classical island biogeography theory. We found
 that species richness on the Greater Antilles is positively correlated
 with island size but also with the presence of elevations showing that not
 only island area but also mountainous relief may be an important factor
 determining the number of freshwater species in the Greater Antilles. Our
 findings shed light on mechanisms that may differently drive speciation in
 aquatic versus terrestrial environments suggesting that ecological
 opportunity could outweigh the importance of island size in speciation.
 Investigations into freshwater fishes of the West Indies offer a promising
 avenue for understanding the origins and subsequent diversification of the
 Caribbean biota.
description: We conducted a literature search on the Web of Knowledge (Web of
 Science Core Collection database) through the University of Oklahoma
 Library website on December 17<sup>th</sup>, 2020. We obtained
 a total of 890 article records published between 1900 and 2020 using the
 following key word combinations for the search: “West Indies biogeography”
 (238 records), “Caribbean biota” (153 records), “Caribbean islands
 colonization” (234 records), “adaptive radiations Caribbean” (128 records)
 and “Antilles biodiversity” (131 records). After each search using a
 specific key word combination, all available outcomes (publications) were
 assessed and scrutinized based on the topic of the each study. We only
 considered publications in which the central theme was related to aspects
 of the Caribbean biogeography (i.e. historical biogeography, species
 radiations, phylogenetic and phylogeographic studies). In addition, we
 classified the publications according to the specific area coverage for
 each study, studied group(s) and the analysis of biogeographical trends or
 biogeographical theories supported by each study (if any).