New Zealand Journal of Zoology abstracts
A working list of breeding bird species of the New Zealand region at first
human contact
RICHARD N. HOLDAWAY
Palaecol Research
P.O. Box 16 569
Christchurch
New Zealand
E-mail: piopio@netaccess.co.nz
TREVOR H. WORTHY
Palaeofaunal Surveys
38 Lowes Place
Masterton
New Zealand
E-mail: twmoa@wise.net.nz
ALAN J. D. TENNYSON
1 Lincoln St
Brooklyn
Wellington
New Zealand
E-mail: alant@tepapa.govt nz
Abstract We present an annotated working list of the bird
species breeding in New Zealand during the late Pleistocene and Holocene, up to
the time of human contact. New Zealand is defined as including the three main
islands and the surrounding smaller islands, plus outlying island groups from
Norfolk Island in the northwest, the Kermadec, Chatham, Bounty, Antipodes,
Campbell, Auckland, Snares, to Macquarie Islands, but excluding islands south
of Macquarie Island and the Ross Dependency. Inclusions or exclusions of
species from the list were based on specified criteria. We include only species
with a breeding population and not vagrants that occur in New Zealand but which
breed elsewhere. Species with validly published names were included if there
was fossil evidence for a breeding population before human contact. Species
with a breeding population at the time of European contact were included unless
contrary evidence from the fossil record indicates that they actually colonised
after human settlement. Species without a fossil record were included if a
breeding population exists on a relatively undisturbed island within the New
Zealand archipelago as defined above. Species now present on the main islands
were excluded if they are absent from all well-documented fossil faunas.
Species were excluded from the breeding fauna and treated as vagrants where
sustained breeding has not been demonstrated. The phylogenetic species concept
is applied both to fossil and to living taxa. The late Quaternary fossil record
of birds in New Zealand is excellent, and the contribution of extinct taxa to
the total list is understood at least as well as that of the surviving taxa.
Many taxa presently recognised at subspecific level are treated here as full
species. Twelve extinct species whose former presence is known from fossil
evidence, but for which no description has been published, are listed under
informal species designations. Taxonomic considerations limited the extent to
which the main list could reflect present understanding of the diversity of the
avifauna; some undescribed species are at present subsumed under one species
name. Where previous taxonomic publications provide precedence, available names
at the species-level have been used. A supplementary hypothetical species list
includes all nomenclatural changes signalled in extensive annotations to the
main list. In this list we accept 245 species in 110 genera representing 46
families; 176 species were endemic to the archipelago. Preliminary
biogeographic analyses based on the composition of the supplementary list show
that there were four separate regional faunas: a northern subtropical fauna
(Norfolk, Kermadecs); the major fauna of the main islands (North, South,
Stewart, and offshore islands); a Chathams fauna (Chatham Islands only); and a
subantarctic fauna on the southern islands. Species with wider distributions
formed link groups. The origin and compositions of the regional avifaunas and
their endemic species differ with their geographic position, climate, and
proximity to source faunas. Instances of speciation in groups such as the
Coenocorypha snipe and
Petroica flycatchers, and adaptive
radiations in groups including moa and acanthisittid wrens, show that there are
many avenues for research on the rate of evolution in island and mainland
populations of New Zealand birds and that there are large gaps in knowledge of
even common taxa. A brief case study demonstrates the inadequacies of using
species lists that do not include Holocene fossil species. Species-area curves
based on the total fauna differ substantially from those developed in previous
studies based on incomplete, or biased, lists. Pleistocene glaciations caused
the pattern of distribution of species on the main islands to change in concert
with vegetation changes. Other possible effects include the elimination of warm
climate species early in the cooling phase more than 1 million years ago, the
speciation in groups including waders and parrots as new habitats (e.g.,
braided riverbeds and alpine areas) appeared, and the appearance regularly
during the Pleistocene of islands that were potential staging points for
colonisation of the Chatham Islands. For at least the past 100 000 years, until
2000 years ago, the fauna appears to have been very stable in composition,
despite strong cyclic fluctuations in climate and vegetation. The effects of
extinctions within the past 2000 years on the composition of the present fauna
include the elimination of most of the endemic taxa from all but the
subantarctic faunas. Only 169 species of the original late Holocene breeding
fauna survive. The extinctions have resulted in a strong bias towards marine
and coastal taxa in the present avifauna, in contrast to the balanced
representation of terrestrial and marine species in the Pleistocene and
Holocene fauna. The importance of systematic studies and the determination of
the status of island populations to conservation and basic ornithological
research is emphasised. The systematic status of many New Zealand birds is
poorly known at present.
Keywords avifauna; list; breeding species; phylogenetic
species concept; New Zealand; extinction; evolution; biogeography; new
synonymy
New Zealand Journal of Zoology, 2001, Vol. 28: 119-187
0301-4223/01/2802-0119 $7.00/0 (c) The Royal Society of New
Zealand 2001
Z99045
Received 2 November 1999; accepted 18 January 2001
PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (5612K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)
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