A short history of Early Paleozoic brachiopod-based biogeography

The study of the geographic distribution of Early Paleozoic brachiopods is fundamental to understanding the past positions and movements of continents, microcontinents and island arcs through time. Palaeogeography has played key roles on migration routes, biodiversifications and extinctions. Ordovician palaeobiogeography has been investigated for nearly a century. We track the methods used in these studies from a single taxon approach to sophisticated multivariate methods, exemplified through three case histories, invoking the Iapetus and Tethys oceans together with the Kazakhstanian terranes. With the availability of large data sets, palaeobiogeography has become an important part of studies of Early Paleozoic biodiversity, extinction and speciation events.