[Taxacom] Ratites and frogs of New Zealand

[Ken Kinman]

John Grehan wrote:
     As I went back over the frog question I recalled that indeed the 
sister-group relationship between the NZ frog and Ascaphus of W North 
America was not supported.  However, this does not end the Pacific 
affinities of the NZ Frog....    So I would conclude at this time that a 
Pacific baseline for the NZ frogs still stands among at least some 
phylogenetic reconstructions as part of an assemblage of the most basal frog 
lineages. This might imply that the frog ancestor was distributed over 
landscapes involving the Pacific as well as Atlantic and Indian Ocean 
regions before they were the oceans of today), but the primitive lineages 
differentiated over the Pacific sector while other parts of the world 
encompassed the more derived lineages.
*******************************
John,
     Is ANYONE trying to "end the Pacific affinities of the NZ Frog"?  
Certainly not me, since I would obviously even further restrict it to the 
southern Pacific.  The verbiage of your whole post seems to be stating the 
obvious in a rather roundabout and bloated sort of way.  New Zealand is on 
the edge of the Pacific rim, so its Pacific affinities are not at all 
surprising.

     As for your conclusions, I would agree the primitive lineages of the 
CROWN group certainly seem to center on the Pacific basin----again stating 
the obvious.  However, stem group frogs (outside of the crown group) are 
found outside the Pacific basin (e.g., Triadobatrachidae of Madagascar).  
Frogs could have originated just about anywhere before the continents 
started drifting apart.

     Panbiogeography (particularly your application of it) doesn't impress 
me in the least.  In particular, it seems to lead to the conclusion (at 
least your interpretations of it) that New Zealand's faunae are largely the 
result of vicariance, and this is thankfully coming under increasing 
scrutiny.  Broadly speaking, I see panbiogeography as too restrictive and 
often misleading (just as I see strict cladism as restrictive and often 
misleading).  Both are too legalistic and full of self-congratulatory 
verbiage for my tastes.  I think I'll stick to a modern form of Darwinism 
and a more eclectic approach to both taxonomy and biogeography.  Biology is 
already too burdened by semantic bickering and obfuscatory verbiage!!!
    ----Ken Kinman

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