What is DIVA?

DIVA is a simple computer program for analyses in historical biogeography based on the dispersal-vicariance approach (Ronquist 1997). This is a new method for reconstructing the distribution history of a group of organisms from the distribution areas of extant species and their phylogeny. DIVA is based on optimisation of a three-dimensional cost matrix derived from a simple biogeographic model. Distributions are described in terms of a set of unit areas, and speciation is assumed to divide ancestral distributions allopatrically into mutually exclusive sets of unit areas. The optimal distributions of ancestral species are found by minimizing the number of dispersal and extinction events. Unlike other methods in historical biogeography, areas are not required to be hierarchically related; DIVA does not assume anything about the shape or existence of general patterns of area relationships.

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Download DIVA and character matrices:

DIVA package for PPC-Macintosh Containing the PowerMac version of DIVA 1.1, example files, and the User's Manual in MS Word 5.0 (Mac) and 6.0 format (bin-hexed, self-extracting archive, 312 K).

DIVA package for 32-bit Windows systems (Windows 3.x with Win32S installed, Windows95 and Windows NT) Containing the Windows version of DIVA 1.2, example files, and the User's Manual in MS Word 6.0 format (MSDOS self-extracting file, 161 K).