panbiogeographic related paper

[John Grehan]

For those interested, this is another paper from the recent book on Pacific
island biotas.
I referred earlier to the single paper using track analysis. I have since
noticed that the
paper (cited in full below) by Polhemus does identify track analysis as a
"reasonable tool in
attempting to identify arc-mediated distributions".

This acknowledgement by Polhemus is particularly interesting in that he
sees difficulties with
area cladistics analyses for this purpose, and suggests that "the best that
can be done" is to search for multiple area cladograms within a given
region, each of which represents the fuanal history of a particular land
mass and an arc system that accreted to it." This description infers, at
least
implicitly, that area cladograms have no biogeogrpahically defining
features, but must be tacked
onto geology, and even that is problematic.

Polhemus speculates that the usefulness of track analysis to identify
arc-mediated distributions
"perhaps accounts for its current popularity among biogeographers in New
Zealand, which contains many arc terranes." I am not aware that this
situation would explain its popularity, since there are quite a number of
new Zealand "biogeographers" who are totally opposed to panbiogeography
(even to the extent of possibly suppressing funding opportunities), so the
local situation may not be sufficient. Perhaps more important was the lack
of control exerted by supervisors over their research students in New
Zealand, which at least in many other situations would have rendered such
explorations impossible.

Polhemus, D. A. (1996). Island arcs, and their influence on Indo-Pacific
biogeography. Pp. 51-66. In The origin and evolution of Pacific island
biotas, New Guinea to eastern Polynesia: Patterns and Processes. (A. Keast,
S. E. Miller). SPB Academic Publishing, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

John Grehan