New Zealand Journal of Zoology abstracts
Historical biogeography of the New Zealand freshwater crayfishes
(Parastacidae, Paranephrops spp.): restoration of a refugial
survivor?
R. M. McDowall
National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
P.O. Box 8602
Christchurch, New Zealand
Abstract New Zealand’s two species of freshwater
parastacid crayfishes have allopatric distributions, with one species
in the North Island and northwestern South Island and the other in the
eastern and southern South Island and Stewart Island. This gives the
appearance of a vicariance event driven by uplift of the Southern Alps
beginning in the Pliocene, and of former land connections across both
Cook Strait and Foveaux Strait. However, separation of the two species
may date from before the Southern Alps were formed. A diverse series of
historical geological events is invoked to explain details of the
distributions of these two species. Absence of Paranephrops
from intermontane valleys of eastern flanks of the Southern Alps is
notably different from patterns seen in freshwater fish species.
Keywords freshwater crayfish; Parastacidae; Paranephrops;
distribution; New Zealand
Z04011; Received 15 March 2004; accepted 26 October 2004; Online
publication date 13 May 2005
New Zealand Journal of Zoology, 2005, Vol. 32: 55–77
0301–4223/05/3202–0055 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2005
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