[Taxacom] Wallacea "the Gauntlet" (was: Biodiversity hotspots SEAsia)

[John Grehan]

Ken,

Thanks for the suggestion. I understand that there is an area called
'Wallacea', but it's an artificial construction and the dispersals are
pretty much products of imagination. It's a good example how one can
draw a line that might fit one or other groups, call it a barrier, and
then classify all other organisms as either imprisoned by that barrier,
or transgressors that somehow crossed the 'barrier'. Anyway, for my
purposes I wanted to know if the region had been identified for its
biodiversity importance in any particular way so I could comment on that
with respect to some ghost moth distributions.

John Grehan

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Kenneth Kinman
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2011 12:03 AM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] Wallacea "the Gauntlet" (was: Biodiversity hotspots
SEAsia)

       The hotspot in question, including Sulawesi (i.e., "Celebes"),
the Lesser Sunda Islands, etc., is called Wallacea.  It is to the east
of the Wallace Line (while the Sundaland hotspot is to the west of that
line).  I believe that the eastern boundary of Wallacea is called the
"Weber Line".          
        Wallacea is what I recently called the "gauntlet", which tends
to very effectively filter out many dispersals from both directions
(Sundaland on the west and most of Australasia to the east).  Wallacea
is thus a mixture which is particularly rich in endemic species (those
which got isolated and stuck within this "gauntlet" but unable to
completely penetrate the gauntlet (in either direction).         
       Anyway, a Google search for "Wallacea biodiversity" should yield
a lot good possibilities, or better yet, "Wallacea biodiversity" and
map.  
                -----------Ken                       
--------------------------------------------------------------

Can anyone direct me to one or more recent papers that identify global
centers of biodiversity? I recall there were one or two papers (maybe in
Nature or Science) that did this with some color coded maps. I am
interested to see if the region of South East Asia, particularly the
region of the Lesser Sunda and Celebes showed up in any particular way.
I could probably track (and no bad pun unintended) this down next week,
but it would be helpful to me to find these articles as soon as possible
for possible citation purposes and I am assuming that some on this list
probably keep apace with global biodiversity overviews. 
Thanks, 
John Grehan 



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