Goodbye Gondwana? New Zealand Biogeography, Geology, and the Problem of Circularity

TLDR

Abstract

is the perceived role of plate tectonics in mediating the widespread Gondwanan distribution of taxa currently limited to southern landmasses such as Africa, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and New Caledonia. Following the general acceptance of plate tectonic theory, vicariance biogeographers (e.g. Rosen, 1978; Nelson and Ladiges, 2001; Humphries, 2000; Ebach et al, 2003) have explained the wide southern distributions of ratite birds, freshwater fishes, and southern beeches, for example, as essentially passive phenomena shaped by geology. Vicariant biogeographic inferences should ideally be based on a combination of biological and geological information. When such distinct fields of scientific re