Reconciliation time: resolving the conflicts between paleaoenvironmental science and evolution

I am faced with a quandary. Many of you will know parts of this story, but perhaps fewer have put the parts together. Although it might seem parochial, I feel that it is an exemplar of a kind of problem that is appearing in many parts of the world.

The problem is with the idea of glacial refugia in eastern Tasmania. This region is botanically diverse, and includes many species that occur nowhere else. This raises the question of what these species did during the last glacial maximum (LGM). Did they survive in isolated pockets of suitable habitat (refugia), did they recolonise from elsewhere after the LGM or have they evolved since the LGM?