[Taxacom] south-west Australia

[Michael Heads]

Hi Jim,
 
Rather than relying on raw species counts to estimate biodiversity, people like Williams, Humphries and Faith developed phylogeny-based methods in the early 1990s. These have been developed and the latest ideas incorporate two factors of a group: phylogenetic position and size of the distribution area. A variant I'm using looks at the area of the group in comparison with its sister. So the groups with highest value would be things like Amborella endemic to New Caledonia and sister to the angiosperms, a global group, or acanthisittid wrens of New Zealand, sister to passerines. New Zealand, New Caledonia and east Australia have many of these groups, other areas with high values of the parameter include Madagascar/South Africa, and Mexico.  
 
The rank of some of the high-ranking endemics in SW Australia is controversial and the idea is to avoid getting bogged down in the taxonomic rank debate.  
 
Michael 

Wellington, New Zealand.

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

--- On Sun, 19/6/11, Jim Croft <jim.croft at gmail.com> wrote:


From: Jim Croft <jim.croft at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] south-west Australia
To: "Michael Heads" <michael.heads at yahoo.com>
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Received: Sunday, 19 June, 2011, 10:00 AM



Why? What is that going to tell you?
Jim
[Mobile]
On 19/06/2011 7:27 AM, "Michael Heads" <michael.heads at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Dear Taxacom,
>  
> I'm making a list of south-west Australian endemics that have sub-cosmopolitan sister-groups. So far I've found: the plants Emblingia and Nuytsia, the crustacean Daphnia occidentalis, and the freshwater fish Lepidogalaxias. If anyone knows of any others I'd be very interested to hear.
>  
> Michael Heads 
>  
>  
> 
> 
> Wellington, New Zealand.
> 
> My papers on biogeography are at: http://tiny.cc/RiUE0
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