[Taxacom] Long-distance oceanic dispersal (rafting) of Nothofagus species

Michael Heads m.j.heads at gmail.com
Sun Jun 3 19:10:57 CDT 2018 

Ken

You say 'Nothofagus evolved much later (after the break up Gondwana)',
but fossils are known back to the Cretaceous (early Campanian). All four
extant subgenera have Cretaceous fossils. The actual age of the clades may
be older than this, of course.

On Mon, Jun 4, 2018 at 11:08 AM, Kenneth Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com> wrote:

> John,
>
>       Well, you tossing out such red herrings will not dissuade me.
> Including the scientific one about frogs.  The two primitive frog families
> originated way back in the Paleozoic when the world map was much different
> (Gondwanaland still largely intact).  No long-distance dispersal
> necessary.  Vicariance explains that case quite nicely.  Nothofagus evolved
> much later (after the break up Gondwana), so I don't know why you tossed
> out that red herring.    And comparing my hypothesis to UFOs or an Act of
> God could be interpreted as a bit insulting.  And in your second post
> saying that "Chance dispersal continues to hold a very visceral appeal for
> evolutionary biologists", seems to indicate to me that many
> panbiogeographers tend to overstate the importance of vicariance and too
> often either ignore or attack evidence for chance dispersal when it is
> presented.  I suspect that is what will happen if any evidence is found to
> support my hypothesis.  One thing is certain---we won't find such evidence
> if we don't look for it.
>
>                -------------Ken
>
> P.S.  Your latest comment about "fairy tales" was a bit rude.  I don't see
> why the explanation I put forward and question I asked of Bart should be
> characterized as fairy tales.
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com>
> Sent: Sunday, June 3, 2018 9:46 AM
> To: Kenneth Kinman
> Cc: Stephen Thorpe; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Long-distance oceanic dispersal (rafting) of
> Nothofagus species
>
> Ken,
>
> Its not a testable notion in any real sense any more than attributing the
> connection to UFO's. Further, it is not an 'odd' distribution, but one that
> is very even (meaning standard). One can invoke any number of imaginary
> events to toss plants and animals from one side of the Tasman to the other,
> or even just place them there by an Act of God, but there is no empirical
> imperative to do so for this any more than imagining a tsunami to toss
> frogs from Vancouver to New Zealand.
>
> John Grehan
>
> On Sun, Jun 3, 2018 at 8:38 AM, Kenneth Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com<mailto:
> kinman at hotmail.com>> wrote:
> Hi Stephen,
>
>       But it could be somewhat scientifically testable if some organisms
> (mostly likely insects) have the same odd distribution in New Zealand and
> Tasmania (or adjacent Australia).  So I am hoping that some entomologist
> might know of insects that fit the bill.  And if there were more than one
> such organism, the more likely this dispersal scenario would become.
>
>        And note that I cited two different Nothofagus species groups with
> the same odd distribution (one in subgenus Lophozonia and the other in
> subgenus Fuscospora).  And those two dispersals could have happened at
> different times.  So that already increases the probability of dispersal.
> Anyway, at least Fred understood what I was suggesting:
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom/2006-December/108388.html
>
>
> -----------------Ken
>
> ________________________________
> From: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz<mailto:
> stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>>
> Sent: Saturday, June 2, 2018 8:59 PM
> To: Kenneth Kinman
> Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Long-distance oceanic dispersal (rafting) of
> Nothofagus species
>
> "Could certain insects, mosses, or other organisms have hitched a ride on
> such a Nothofagus raft?"
>
> Impossible to rule out just about anything that doesn't constantly require
> running freshwater. If it happened during summer, there could be a
> desiccating effect, but at other times the amount of freshwater dampness
> could remain at acceptable levels.
>
> The problem though, as I see it, is that these dispersion events are
> entirely random and unpredictable, so it is hard to base much in the way of
> science on it.
>
> Stephen
>
> --------------------------------------------
> On Sun, 3/6/18, Kenneth Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com<mailto:kin
> man at hotmail.com>> wrote:
>
>  Subject: [Taxacom] Long-distance oceanic dispersal (rafting) of
> Nothofagus      species
>  To: "Kenneth Kinman" <kinman at hotmail.com<mailto:kinman at hotmail.com>>
>  Cc: "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>" <
> taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>>
>  Received: Sunday, 3 June, 2018, 1:51 PM
>
>  Hi all,
>
>  The recent thread got me thinking about a debate that some
>  of us were having on taxacom almost 12 years ago.  Namely
>  whether long-distance oceanic dispersal (by rafting) was a
>  significant factor in the geographic distribution of some
>  species of Nothofagus (sensu lato).
>
>   My hypothesis was that large rafts of dislodged Nothofagus
>  trees (due to tsunami or other massive flooding event) could
>  have held some of their fruit above the ocean surface and
>  rafted from Tasmania to New Zealand, where one or more  new
>  species could evolve (due to founder effect).  This would
>  be a relatively short rafting event compared to the much
>  longer driftwood oceanic rafting that happened from South
>  America to Tasmania: Barber, 1959, in the journal Nature;
>  "Transport of Driftwood from South America to
>  Tasmania". Is there other evidence that such dispersal
>  of Nothofagus could have happened? Could certain insects,
>  mosses, or other organisms have hitched a ride on such a
>  Nothofagus raft?
>
>                   --------------Ken Kinman
>  http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom/2006-December/108385.html
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-- 
Dunedin, New Zealand.

My books:

*Biogeography and evolution in New Zealand. *Taylor and Francis/CRC, Boca
Raton FL. 2017.
https://www.routledge.com/Biogeography-and-Evolution-in-New-Zealand/Heads/p/book/9781498751872


*Biogeography of Australasia:  A molecular analysis*. Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge. 2014. www.cambridge.org/9781107041028


*Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics. *University of California Press,
Berkeley. 2012. www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520271968


*Panbiogeography: Tracking the history of life*. Oxford University Press,
New York. 1999. (With R. Craw and J. Grehan).
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=Bm0_QQ3Z6GUC
<http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=Bm0_QQ3Z6GUC&dq=panbiogeography&source=gbs_navlinks_s>

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