New Zealand Journal of Botany abstracts

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Plant biogeography and the late Cenozoic history of New Zealand

M. S. McGLONE

Botany Division, DSIR
Private Bag, Christchurch
New Zealand

Abstract Patterns of regional endemism, vicar- iance, and disjunction in New Zealand higher plants are reviewed. These are discussed in relation to the post-Oligocene history of the geology, climate, and vegetation. Previous explanations for such distri- bution patterns have centred on the disruptive effects of ice and severe climates during the Last Glaciation, and subsequent migration of plants from glacial refugia during the postglacial. It is con- cluded that these explanations are largely inadequate. It is suggested that many endemic, vicariant, and disjunct plant distributions are related to the large-scale modification of the New Zealand land mass which has occurred as a result of active tectonism since the Oligocene. The more stable regions of New Zealand (in particular North- land, northwest Nelson, and Otago) have retained diverse floras partly as a result of retention of older elements of the flora which more radically altered areas (southern North Island, central South Island) have tended to lose. The rapidly rising Southern Alps may have acted as a centre of speciation because of its provision of novel alpine and sub- alpine environments. Glaciations have affected dis- tribution patterns mainly through permitting the wide spread of glacial environment specialists.

Keywords New Zealand flora; plant biogeogra- phy; plant migration; evolution; endemism; vicar- iance; disjunction; Nothofagus; Agathis; Phyllocladus; Dracophyllum; Plate tectonics; Alpine Fault; Quaternary; Pleistocene; Miocene; Neogene

Received 4 June 1985; accepted 25 July 1985
New Zealand Journal of Botany, 1985, Vol. 23: 723-749
0028-825X/85/23O4-O723$2.50/0 © Crown copyright 1985

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (2374K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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