A review of the timing of the major tectonic events in the New Guinea Orogen

Relicts from Tertiary Australasia: undescribed families and subfamilies of songbirds (Passeriformes) and their zoogeographic signal

“…), including the five newly published here; four are endemic. According to a consensus of tectonic reconstructions (Dow 1977;Pigram & Davies 1987;Pigram & Symonds 1991;Charlton 2000;Hall 2002;Schellart et al 2006; and references therein), the New Guinean cordillera had its genesis in ophiolite emplacement along the north rim of the Australian craton in the early Tertiary, picked up on Australia's northward drift. Increasing pressures on the "mobile belt" thus formed, generated by oblique collision with the westward-moving Pacific plate, resulted in mountain building.…”

Plumage based classification of the bowerbird genus Sericulus evaluated using a multi-gene, multi-genome analysis

“…The New Guinea orogeny, which has been suggested to have started as early as the mid Miocene (Cloos et al, 2005) or as late as the early Pliocene (Dow and Sukamto, 1984;Pigram and Davies, 1987;Pigram and Symonds, 1991) has been suggested to have greatly inñuenced the biodiversity of New Guinea (Dumbacher and Fleischer, 2001;Heads, 2001aHeads, , 2002Joseph et al, 2001), and may have played a part in the New Guinea Sericulus radiation. S. chrysocephalus is found along the Eastern coast of Australia (0-900 m), S. ardens in the Fly watershed of southern New Guinea (0-900 m), S. aureus in Northern and Western New Guinea (900-1500 m), and S. bakeri isolated in the Adelbert Mountains (900-1200 m) in Northeastern New Guinea (Cooper and Forshaw, 1977;Gilhard, 1969;Lenz, 1999) (Fig.…”

“…This suggests, most parsimoniously, that ancestors of the modern New Guinea Sericulus species split from S. chrysocephalus, approximately 3.7^.3 MYA, and dispersed northward into southern New Guinea. Dates for the orogeny of the central New Guinea Mountains differ, beginning as early as 12 MYA (Cloos et al, 2005) up until 5 MYA (Dow and Sukamto, 1984;Pigram and Davies, 1987;Pigram and Symonds, 1991), with mountains becoming a barrier to gene flow approximately 3.5-4.5 MYA (Heads, 2001b(Heads, , 2002. This range of dates coincides with the divergence of the New Guinea species from S. chrysocephalus, suggesting the New Guinea orogeny is likely to have played an important role in the radiation of the New Guinea Sericulus species.…”

Major global radiation of corvoid birds originated in the proto-Papuan archipelago

“…1) coincided with the emergence of the first archipelagos in the Papuan epicontinental seas (22)(23)(24)(25), and many lineages that occur outside the Australo-Papuan area are nested among lineages that are endemic to Australo-Papua. In the present study, we investigate the timing and location of the origins of the core Corvoidea to assess the role of the proto-Papuan archipelago in the dispersal of several lineages out of the Australo-Papuan region.…”

“…At that time, Australia was isolated by wide oceanic expanses from the northern landmasses (22,23) that the oscine passerines later colonized. The northern rim of the AustraloPapuan plate (present-day New Guinea) was submerged as a continental shelf, but began to rise out of the sea in the late Eocene/ Oligocene as the Indo-Australian plate approached and collided with other plates (24,25). Although our understanding of global spread of passerine birds is improving, we know little about the timing, dispersal routes, and taxonomic selectivity of colonization events of oscine passerines moving from Australia to Asia or Africa.…”