PleistoDist: A toolbox for visualising and quantifying the effects of Pleistocene sea-level change on island archipelagos

O_LIPleistocene sea-level change played a significant role in the evolution and assembly of island biotas. The formation of land bridges between islands during Quaternary glacial maxima, when sea levels were up to 120 metres below present-day sea levels, often facilitated historical dispersal and gene flow between islands that are today geographically disconnected. C_LIO_LIDespite this, relatively few studies have attempted to quantify the effects of Pleistocene sea-level change on the evolution of island species assemblages. C_LIO_LIHere we present PleistoDist, an R package that allows users to visualise and quantify the effects of Pleistocene sea-level change on islands over time, and test multiple temporally explicit hypotheses of inter-island dispersal and community assembly. C_LIO_LIRe-analysing published datasets, we demonstrate how using PleistoDist to account for historical sea-level change can provide greater explanatory power when analysing extant island communities, and show how population genetic simulations can be used to generate spatiotemporally explicit neutral expectations of population genetic structure across island archipelagos. C_LI