[Taxacom] New Zealand biogeography

[Michael Heads]

Dear Taxacomers,
 
Wallis & Trewick (Mol. Ecol. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2009.04294.x) have just published a lengthy, rigidly partisan review of phylogeography in New Zealand. One of the most interesting patterns in the country is the biogeographic disjunction along the Alpine fault, a plate boundary. Many distributions show a gap of several hundred kilometres that corresponds exactly to lateral (transcurrent) movement on the fault. Earlier, Wallis & Trewick (2001. Finding fault with vicariance: a critique of Heads 1998. Syst. Biol. 50: 602-609) criticised my idea that the gap was due to the fault movement and their new review cites their earlier paper. However, it does not cite our response (Heads, M. & R.C. Craw. 2004. The Alpine fault biogeographic hypothesis revisited.  Cladistics 20: 184-190). Interested readers might like to read both sides of the debate. 
  
Michael Heads

Wellington, New Zealand.

My papers on biogeography are at: http://tiny.cc/RiUE0