Journal
ZOOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY
Volume 182, Issue 3, Pages 681-694Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlx047
Keywords
East Melanesia; Guadalcanal; insular relicts; island biogeography; Makira; phylogeography
Categories
Funding
- Australian Research Council
- Australia Pacific Science Foundation
- National Geographic Society
- Society of Systematic Biologists
- Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
- American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
- University of Kansas
- NSF [DEB 1557053]
- Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
- USGS Ecosystems Mission Area
- Division Of Environmental Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1557053] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The islands of East Melanesia have generated key insights into speciation processes and community assembly. However, when and how these islands began to form, emerge and accumulate endemic taxa remains poorly understood. Here, we show that two divergent lineages within the world's most diverse genus of geckos (Cyrtodactylus) occur in the Solomon Islands. One large-bodied species is nested within a radiation from far eastern New Guinea, with inferred colonization, spread and diversification since the late Miocene. In contrast, a newly sampled and relatively small species with a restricted distribution on Guadalcanal Island is a relict that diverged from extant congeners around the early to mid-Miocene. Similar Miocene divergences from extralimital relatives have been inferred for other endemic bird, bat and lizard lineages in East Melanesia. In contrast, across all lineages (including divergent relictual lineages), there is little evidence for endemic in situ diversification within East Melanesia predating the Pliocene (especially in the Solomon Islands). While some East Melanesian endemic lineages may have origins on progenitor islands during the Miocene or even earlier, current evidence suggests the in situ diversification and assembly of extant biological communities commenced around the end of the Miocene.
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