[Taxacom] Taxacom Digest, Vol 189, Issue 9

[Milen Marinov]

 Very good point John which remind me that for my short time in New Zealand (only 14 years) this is the third large event after an eruption with the Kermadecs and Hunga again back in December 2014. If three significant eruptions happen within 14 years what would it be for the geological history of the planet? There were satellite images in 2014 showing that back then Hunga connected two of the already existing islands, so seven years later all new life on the December island would have been from the existing ones - even snails could have made it to that new structure. I wonder what it will be now - new island, connecting with others or what? Have to wait for the ashes to allow for a clear image to be taken.
    On Thursday, 20 January 2022, 07:00:13 AM NZDT, taxacom-request at lists.ku.edu <taxacom-request at lists.ku.edu> wrote:  
 
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Today's Topics:

  1. Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai & biogeography (John Grehan)


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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2022 15:54:51 -0500
From: John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com>
To: taxacom at lists.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai & biogeography
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The recent eruption of Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai is a reminder of the tectonic
processes operating in the long term persistence of taxa on volcanic
islands. In this case the volcano is part of a system of volcanoes along
the Tonga Trench. Periodic eruptions are essential for the long term
persistence of islands that allow for the concurrent persistence of animal
and plant life. When new volcanoes generate sufficiently  long-lived
islands they are going to be colonized by whatever organisms can encompass
the new landscape within their distribution range (i.e. they have the
necessary means of dispersal). What will happen is that colonization takes
place by organisms already present in the local region. That way, when
older islands erode or subside, animal and plant life survive on the new
habitat. Organisms that form metapopulations involving more than one island
are more likely to survive in the long run (just as true for continental
biota that occupy multiple habitat islands). Its a dicey process, but the
biogeographic patterns suggest that many taxa involving Tonga and other
oceanic islands have persisted this way for tens of millions of years, in
this case from the time the subduction zone rolled back from its former
position along  the East Gondwana coastline.

John Grehan


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End of Taxacom Digest, Vol 189, Issue 9
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