Once more into the wilderness of panbiogeography: a reply to Heads (2014)
Matt S. McGlone
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
Research Associate, Landcare Research, PO Box 69040, Lincoln 7640, New Zealand. Email: mcglonem@landcareresearch.co.nz
Australian Systematic Botany 28(6) 388-393 https://doi.org/10.1071/SB15047
Submitted: 30 November 2015 Accepted: 8 February 2016 Published: 10 May 2016
Abstract
In two recent papers in this journal a leading proponent of panbiogeography, Michael Heads, has continued his critique of long-distance dispersal and molecular clocks, and promotion of alternative geological and evolutionary ideas. An axiomatic rejection of long-distance dispersal, on the grounds that it has no explanatory power, informs these critiques. However, fundamental issues with panbiogeographic theory remain unaddressed. In particular, insurmountable problems for most biologists are created by the requirement for a widespread, often ancient ancestor from which vicariant taxa arose through orthogenesis, and rejection of a role for natural selection or environmental change in species formation. Heads also discusses events in New Zealand in the late 1980s and early 1990s and claims the reaction of the scientific establishment to panbiogeography resulted in two panbiogeographers losing tenured positions, and excluded, silenced or drove the rest into exile. This is a dramatic but misleading interpretation of what happened. The losses of positions were unconnected to science issues. That it is difficult to get panbiogeographic work funded or published in New Zealand is undoubtedly true, but this fate is shared by any work that seeks to overturn established evolutionary theory but provides no convincing evidence for doing so.
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