Some 200 species of plants are currently recognised as being native to both Tasmania and New Zealand. It is argued that dispersal across the 1500-2000-km Tasman Sea has occurred in all of these species. Almost all (187) are herbs and constitute over 20% of the herbaceous flora of Tasmania. Common species, non-dioecious species, species with very small seeds, species from aquatic, coastal or wet habitats and possibly species with hooked fruit are all over-represented among the disjunct species of herbs. The incidence of disjunct species also varies significantly among families. In contrast, fleshy fruited species, or species with plumes or very hairy disseminules, are not over-represented among the herbaceous disjunct species. These data are used to model the probability that a species (past or present) with given traits would show a within-species trans-Tasman disjunction, and it is inferred that this can be used to give a crude approximation of the rates of long-distance dispersal for different types of species. The model can be tested by using molecular clock methods and could be made more robust by incorporating equivalent data from other disjunct regions.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Biological Sciences
Research Group:	Evolutionary biology
Research Field:	Plant and fungus systematics and taxonomy
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in the environmental sciences
UTAS Author:	Jordan, GJ (Professor Greg Jordan)
ID Code:	22489
Year Published:	2001
Web of Science® Times Cited:	60
Deposited By:	Plant Science
Deposited On:	2001-08-01
Last Modified:	2011-08-03
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