Michael Heads

Michael Heads

Ph.D.

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76
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Publications

Publications (76)
Article
Biogeographers have often been puzzled by several unusual features in the Juan Fernández Islands (JFI) biota. These include the very high endemism density, multiple endemics that are older than the current islands, close biogeographic affinities with the central and West Pacific, and affinities with the diverse Coast Range of central Chile. We revi...
Article
The butterfly subtribe Coenonymphina (Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) comprises four main clades found, respectively, in (1) the Solomon Islands, (2) Australasia, (3) NW South America and (4) Laurasia, with a phylogeny: 1 (2 (3 + 4)). In assessing biogeographic evolution in the group we rejected the conversion of fossil-calibrated clade ages to likely maxi...
Article
Aim To examine the different methods currently used in molecular biogeography. Methods of interpreting evolution in space (ancestral‐area algorithms) always find a centre of origin for a group in the region of a paraphyletic basal grade, although regionally restricted basal grades can also be generated by simple vicariance. Current analyses of the...
Article
In the traditional biogeographic model, the Galápagos Islands appeared a few million years ago in a sea where no other islands existed and were colonized from areas outside the region. However, recent work has shown that the Galápagos hotspot is 139 million years old (Early Cretaceous), and so groups are likely to have survived at the hotspot by di...
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The biota of New Caledonia is one of the most unusual in the world. It displays high diversity and endemism, many peculiar absences, and far‐flung biogeographic affinities. For example, New Caledonia is the only place on Earth with both main clades of flowering plants – the endemic Amborella and ‘all the rest’, and it also has the highest concentra...
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This paper analyses biogeography and ecology in the grass Simplicia, endemic to New Zealand, with respect to tectonic geology and to distributions in other groups of plants and animals. There are disjunctions and phylogenetic breaks at the Oparara basin (north-west Nelson), the Western Province-Eastern Province tectonic boundary, the Alpine fault a...
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Coprosma is perhaps the most ubiquitous plant genus in New Zealand. It belongs to the tribe Anthospermeae, which is distinctive in the family Rubiaceae through its small, simple, wind-pollinated flowers and its southern hemisphere distribution. The tribe comprises four main clades found respectively in South Africa, Africa, Australia and the Pacifi...
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This paper reviews ideas on the relationship between the ecology of clades and their distribution. Ecological biogeography represents a tradition that dates back to ancient times. It assumes that the distribution of organisms is explained by factors of present environment, especially climate. In contrast, modern systematics, following its origins i...
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Panbiogeographic analysis is now used by many authors, but it has been criticised in recent reviews, with some critics even suggesting that studies using the method should not be accepted for publication. The critics have argued that panbiogeography is creationist, that it rejects dispersal, that its analyses are disingenuous, and that it deliberat...
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This article reviews the methods of biogeographic analysis in current use, as summarised by Alan de Queiroz, 2014 (The Monkey's Voyage, Basic Books, New York). The methods rely on molecular clock dates (the weakest part of molecular research) rather than analysis of the distributions of clades defined in phylogenies (the strongest part of the resea...
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Abrotanella is the basal genus in the large tribe Senecioneae (Asteraceae) and has a disjunct distribution in Australasia and South America. A recent molecular phylogeny of the genus was used to investigate whether the main biogeographical patterns in the group could be related to the region's tectonic history in a coherent way. The phylogenetic/bi...
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The crucial step in Bayesian dating of phylogenies is the selection of prior probability curves for clade ages. In studies on regions derived from Gondwana, many authors have used steep priors, stipulating that clades can only be a little older than their oldest known fossil. These studies have ruled out vicariance associated with Gondwana breakup,...
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We analyzed the geographical and elevational distributions of two Polypodium complexes from Mexico and Central America. Distribution data of nine species of the Polypodium colpodes complex and the Polypodium plesiosorum complex were obtained from almost 1500 herbarium specimens, field collections in Mexico and Costa Rica, and literature studies. Th...
Article
Molecular studies reveal highly ordered geographic patterns in plant and animal distributions. The tropics illustrate these patterns of community immobilism leading to allopatric differentiation, as well as other patterns of mobilism, range expansion, and overlap of taxa. Integrating Earth history and biogeography, Molecular Panbiogeography of the...
Chapter
Distribution patterns in the Hawaiian Islands have often been interpreted with respect to island age and the “progression rule,” with groups on younger islands predicted to be nested in groups on older islands. Nevertheless, most molecular studies do not support a simple progression rule. Instead, groups on different individual islands show recipro...
Chapter
The Hawaiian biota is often explained as the result of dispersal from Asian and American mainlands, either direct or by island hopping. Models of intraplate volcanism include the mantle plume/hot spot model (Wilson-Morgan model) and recent alternatives based on plate flexure. Features such as the Line Islands (now atolls) and Musicians Seamounts ar...
Chapter
This chapter concludes the geographic treatment with a brief discussion of biogeography in Mexico, especially the “Mexican-Y” pattern that involves differentiation between east and west. Outliers of the Old World suboscine birds in Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador illustrate geographic boundaries that are also seen in the primates of the region. The p...
Chapter
The main processes in biogeography are phylogenetic differentiation by vicariance, range expansion by normal ecological dispersal, and, in some cases, sympatric differentiation. Chance dispersal and differentiation by founder dispersal can be rejected. The location of a basal clade or a paraphyletic basal group have been thought to represent a cent...
Chapter
The distributions of the ten widespread primate clades in Africa are compared and contrasted. The phylogenetic breaks are related to aspects of regional tectonics, including the Lebombo monocline of southern Africa, the Central African rift system, marine transgression in the Congo basin, and Cenozoic uplift in East Africa. In Asia, evolution in th...
Chapter
New volcanic islands may be colonized from neighboring islands rather than from distant continents. The source islands may subsequently erode and subside, and eventually form atolls or submerged seamounts. Island taxa persist more or less in situ as dynamic metapopulations on individually ephemeral islands. These metapopulations may evolve by vicar...
Chapter
The eight widespread clades of New World monkeys are examined, and the distributional breaks in the clades are compared. The breaks and overlaps are related to the Cretaceous and Cenozoic tectonics of the region. Overlap among the main clades is attributed to Cretaceous marine incursions, while overlap among lower-level clades may reflect Miocene m...
Chapter
This chapter extends the discussion past the factors of space and time to include evolution in form. The critique of the center of origin-adaptation-dispersal (CODA) model that is presented here finds parallels in work on genome evolution. The modern synthesis idea that whole-genome evolution relies on “extrinsic needs” can be replaced by a model o...
Book
Molecular studies have revealed highly ordered geographic patterns in plant and animal groups, and this book discusses examples from the tropics. During evolution, phases of community immobilism that lead to allopatric differentiation alternate with phases of mobilism that lead to range expansion and overlap of taxa. Both phases are caused by geolo...
Book
Over the last decade, molecular studies carried out on the Australasian biota have revealed a new world of organic structure that exists from submicroscopic to continental scale. Furthermore, in studies of global biogeography and evolution, DNA sequencing has shown that many large groups, such as flowering plants, passerine birds and squamates, hav...
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This paper provides a panbiogeographical analysis of the endemic plant families and the palms of New Caledonia. There are three endemic plant families in New Caledonia and several genera that were previously recognized as endemic families. Of these taxa, some are sister to widespread Northern Hemisphere or global groups (Canacomyrica, Austrotaxus,...
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Aim The distributions of many New Caledonian taxa were reviewed in order to ascertain the main biogeographical connections with other areas. Location Global. Methods Panbiogeographical analysis. Results Twenty-four areas of endemism (tracks) involving New Caledonia and different areas of Gondwana, Tethys and the central Pacific were retrieved. Most...
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This note replies to criticisms raised by Murienne (Journal of Biogeography, 2010, doi:10.1111/j.1365-2699.2010.02321. x). Herein it is argued that assuming distributions in New Caledonia are caused by current environmental factors overlooks the possible importance of regional tectonic history for the biogeography.
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Heads, M. Evolution and biogeography of primates: a new model based on molecular phylogenetics, vicariance and plate tectonics. —Zoologica Scripta, 39, 107–127. The ages of the oldest fossils suggest an origin for primates in the Paleocene (∼56 Ma). Fossil-calibrated molecular clock dates give Cretaceous dates (∼80–116 Ma). Both these estimates are...
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The present study illustrates a method for analysing the biogeography of a group that is based on the group's phylogeny but does not invoke founder dispersal or centre of origin. The case studies presented include groups from many different parts of the world, but most are from the south-west Pacific. The idea that basal groups are ancestral is not...
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It is a strange fact that in many ways the first edition of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species is closer to modern neodarwinism than the sixth and last edition. Sometimes this is attributed to a decline in the quality of the argument, but the opposite interpretation is given here. It is suggested that Darwin's early work on evolution is naõ ¨ve and...
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The New Zealand wrens (Acanthisittidae) are basal in passerine birds and in New Caledonia, the closest country to New Zealand, Amborella is basal in angiosperms. A review of molecular studies indicates that 29 other locally or regionally endemic clades around the Tasman and Coral Sea basins have cosmopolitan or globally widespread sister groups. Ot...
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Aim To investigate areas of endemism in New Caledonia and their relationship with tectonic history. Location New Caledonia, south-west Pacific. Methods Panbiogeographical analysis. Results Biogeographical patterns within New Caledonia are described and illustrated with reference to eight terranes and ten centres of endemism. The basement terranes m...
Article
This paper documents a newly discovered pattern of biological disjunction between NW and SE New Caledonia. The disjunction occurs in 87 (mapped) taxa, including plants, moths and lizards, and correlates spatially with the West Caledonian fault. This fault is controversial; some geologists interpret it as a major structure, others deny that it exist...
Article
Distribution maps and notes are given for the 41 species of Parahebe sensu lata. The genus occurs in New Zealand, south-east Australia and New Guinea, with greatest diversity in New Zealand, especially in the Spenser Mountains region of South Island. A group of species with ciliate floral discs is found in north-east South Island, and also in easte...
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An annotated list of indigenous Fijian seed plant genera is presented and comprises 484 genera and 1315 species in 137 families. The relative diversity of the largest families and genera in Fiji is indicated and compared with floras in New Caledonia and the Upper Watut Valley, Papua New Guinea. Differences and similarities appear to be due to bioge...
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Aim The aim of this paper is to analyse the biogeography of Nothofagus and its subgenera in the light of molecular phylogenies and revisions of fossil taxa. Location Cooler parts of the South Pacific: Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, montane New Guinea and New Caledonia, and southern South America. Methods Panbiogeographical analysis is used. This...
Article
Most species of birds of paradise (Paradisaeidae) are endemic in the rainforests of New Guinea. There are also a few species in the northern Moluccas and in northern Australia. Bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchidae) are centred in New Guinea but are more widespread in Australia. The two families have often been regarded as sister groups, but in recent stud...
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A contrast is drawn between the concept of speciation favoured in the Darwin–Wallace biogeographic paradigm (founder dispersal from a centre of origin) and in panbiogeography (vicariance or allopatry). Ordinary ecological dispersal is distinguished from founder dispersal. A survey of recent literature indicates that ideas on many aspects of marine...
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Taxa have been dated using three methods: equating their age with the age of the oldest known fossil, with the age of strata the taxa are endemic to, and with the age of paleogeographic events. All three methods have been adopted as methods of dating nodes in molecular phylogenies. The first method has been the most popular, but both this and the s...
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This study reports a comparison of performance of four year-old whitewood (Endospermum medullosum L S Smith) provenances and families trials established by the Department of Forestry of Vanuatu and the South Pacific Regional Programme In Forest Genetic Resources project (SPRIG). Trees in the different open-pollinated, half-sibling families had mean...
Article
Biogeographic nodes can be characterized as sites of biological endemism, high diversity, distribution boundaries, anomalous absences, disjunct populations, taxonomic incongruence, parallelism and altitudinal anomalies. Their interpretation has depended on the evolutionary model used, in particular the mode of speciation: Croizat's vicariance or Ma...
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The New Zealand Alpine Fault is a major tectonic feature located on the mutual boundary of the Australian and Pacific Plates which is hypothesized to have undergone some 470 km of right-lateral displacement. The Nelson and Westland provinces have moved north-east relative to the rest of the South Island. Many plant and animal taxa show a conspicuou...
Article
2003. Ericaceae in Malesia: vicariance biogeography, terrane tectonics and ecology. Telopea 10(1): 311–449. The Ericaceae are cosmopolitan but the main clades have well-marked centres of diversity and endemism in different parts of the world. Erica and its relatives, the heaths, are mainly in South Africa, while their sister group, Rhododendron and...
Article
Aim To assess regional patterns of biodiversity levels in the New Guinea region by counting numbers of species of different groups in 1° grid squares. Location The New Guinea region. Methods Panbiogeographical analysis [Craw, R.C., Grehan, J.R. & Heads, M.J. (1999) Panbiogeography: tracking the history of life. Oxford University Press, New York]....
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AimThe subspecies of Paradisaeidae are mapped and the distribution patterns correlated with aspects of New Guinea tectonics.LocationNew Guinea, the northern Moluccas, and north-eastern Australia.Methods Panbiogeographical analysis (Craw et al., 1999).ResultsPteridophora, Loboparadisaea, Parotia carolae and others are notably absent from the Vogelko...
Article
Aim The paper reviews the biogeography and ecology of New Guinea using the birds of paradise (Paradisaeidae) as an illustrative example. Location New Guinea, the Moluccas, North‐eastern Australia. Methods Panbiogeographic analysis ( Craw et al ., 1999 ). Results The family Paradisaeidae is interpreted as the main New Guinea vicariant in Sibley &...
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Regional patterns of biodiversity in seven recently-studied, speciose groups of New Guinea plants (comprising 200 species, or 1–2% of the flora) are analysed with maps showing numbers of species in 1o grid cells. Patterns are correlated with the tectonic history of New Guinea. The New Guinea orogen involved rocks of the northern margin of the Austr...
Article
Hoheria equitum is newly described from the Poor Knights Islands and Hen and Chickens Islands off the east coast of Northland, New Zealand. It differs from H. populnea in its smaller, glabrescent flowers, and broadly elliptic leaves with recurved margins which are entire or only shallowly serrulate. The fruit is not known.
Article
The trees and shrubs in Olearia sect. Divaricaster, sect. nov., are found in North, South, and Stewart Islands of New Zealand. They are distinguished by their small, opposite leaves borne on brachyblasts (short shoots), long shoots which abort apically, solitary or fascicled capitula, flowers with purple style arms, and a very distinctive insect fa...
Article
The species of Abrotanella (Compositae) form mats and cushions a few centimetres high and up to a metre or more in diameter. The flowers are less complex than those of most Compositae and lack a pappus, the usual means of dispersal in the family. There are 20 species, all restricted to mountains of Australasia and southern South America. The putati...
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Parsonsia praeruptis is described from the Surville Cliffs, North Cape. It differs from the widespread New Zealand species P. capsularis by its non‐twining, non‐climbing habit, shorter, ovate leaves with a subcordate base, smaller inflorescences, and glabrous calyx lobes. P. praeruptis is an ultramafic endemic and has a total range of less than 120...
Article
The trees and shrubs in Olearia sect. Divaricaster, sect. nov., are found in North, South, and Stewart Islands of New Zealand. They are distinguished by their small, opposite leaves borne on brachyblasts (short shoots), long shoots which abort apically, solitary or fascicled capitula, flowers with purple style arms, and a very distinctive insect fa...
Article
Coprosma decurva, a new species of small‐leaved shrub, is described from North, South, and Stewart Islands of New Zealand. It was formerly included under C. parviflora Hook.f. but has been recognised as distinct since 1961. It differs from related species through its decurved branches, oblong leaves with rounded not cuneate bases, bright red fruits...
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Eighty taxa (subspecies, species, species groups, genera and families) showing disjunction along the New Zealand Alpine fault (Australian/Pacific plate boundary) are documented and mapped. Four plant divisions, including 14 seed plant families, and four animal phyla, including 13 orders of insects, are represented. The disjunction has usually been...
Article
Regional patterns of biodiversity in New Zealand are illustrated by showing numbers of species in 1° latitude × 1° longitude grid squares. Biodiversity maps are given for twelve speciose groups of lichens, plants and animals which have been recently taxonomically revised. Centres of biodiversity are evident in Nelson and Otago. Other groups would p...
Article
The genus Pseudopanax is recognised as polyphyletic. Morphological and anatomical characters are described that support the monophyly of Pseudopanax anomalus, P. edgerleyi, and P. simplex. Reinstatement of the genus Raukaua is recommended to accommodate these species. The new combinations R. anomalus and R. simplex are made.
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The bipolar distributions of Lessoniaceae and Macrocystis have been explained by migration out of a centre of origin and across the tropics by means of dispersal, but controversy centres on the issue: which sector is the true centre of origin? We provide biological, palaeo-oceanographic and geological evidence that leads us to reject the centre of...
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The generic delimitation of Kelleria Endlicher and Drapetes Banks ex Lamarck has remained controversial for 140 years. Data from taxonomic history, morphology and biogeography are reported here and the two genera are maintained as distinct. Eleven species and one variety of Kelleria are recognised, including the following new taxa: K. paludosa, K....
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Attention is drawn to the parallel arc patterns permeating much of New Zealand biogeographic structure. The fracturing and creation of such parallel arcs by tectonic movement and erosion has brought about vast disjunctions in many plant and animal groups. The major arcs of distribution correlate with zones of tectonic activity such as plate and ter...
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The purpose of this article is to present a short critique of the modern school of vicariance/cladistic biogeography. To achieve this aim recently published work on biogeographical methods and the southern beeches (Nothofagus) by Dr. C. J. Humphries is discussed in some detail.
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