"Such inferences can also help us predict which species are most likely to move, evolve or go extinct as climate change intensifies," he said. Scientists have long recognized that geography plays a role in how species colonize new regions and whether widespread species eventually separate out into groups that become genetically distinct, losing the ability to reproduce with each other. But even though geography plays a clear, describable role in the fate of many individual animal and plant species, no one has previously developed standardized models that allow geographical features to shape how evolutionary radiations unfold in space. To address this gap, Landis and his collaborators designed a new phylogenetic model of biogeography that they named FIG.