All but 3 genera of Gerridae are represented in the Old and New World Tropics; no endemic genera occur within the Nearctic or Palearctic regions. The present-day distributions of the 57 genera in the family, when considered within the context of the cladistically derived phylogeny, suggest a tropical origin for the family. Further, it appears most genera attained their distributions and cladistic ranks as their tropical Gondwana ancestors were split by the drifting apart of continents.
The predominant wingform types for genera indicate dispersal may have been important within some genera. In general, monomorphically apterous genera are restricted to a single continental land mass and genera dimorphic or polymorphic in wingform have a wider distribution.
The results of the cladistic analysis of genera lead to the suppression of Gerrisella Poisson within Gerris Fabricius.