Global cooling initiated stony deserts in central Australia 2–4 Ma, dated by cosmogenic 21Ne-10Be

A molecular and morphological investigation of species boundaries and phylogenetic relationships in Australian free-tailed bats Mormopterus (Chiroptera : Molossidae)

“…Interestingly, a similarly high level of ND2 divergence (p-distance = 0.049) was found among populations of the bird species Melithreptus lunatus located on either side of the Nullarbor plain, and this was estimated to equate to a population fragmentation time of between 594 000 and 3.4 million years ago (Dolman and Joseph 2012). This period coincides with a period of increasing aridity on the Australian continent that commenced during the PlioPleistocene and intensified during Milankovitch cycles of the Pleistocene, when the Nullarbor plain is likely to have become a significant barrier to gene flow of mesic-adapted animals in open forest and woodland habitats (Fujioka et al 2005;Byrne et al 2008;Dolman and Joseph 2012). Currently, our data are too limited to provide robust date estimates for the divergence of the bat populations, but additional comparative phylogeographic studies of bat species distributed across southern Australia would be of considerable interest, and may potentially reveal similar patterns of population differentiation.…”

Two new species of the Delma tincta group (Squamata: Pygopodidae) from northwestern Australia

“…Of these, Delma is the most speciose genus with ten species, five of which were described in a comprehensive taxonomic revision by Kluge (1974a). Since this revision, several additional species and subspecies have been recognized in Western Australia, including D. butleri Storr, 1987, D. haroldi Storr, 1987 andD. fraseri petersoni Shea, 1991. Shea (1991 advocated synonymy of D. haroldi and D. butleri and this view is supported in a recent phylogenetic study of pygopodid lizards by Jennings et al (2003).…”

Pre‐Quaternary landscape inheritance in Australia

“…There is pollen evidence to suggest that seasonal aridity may have been present in the Alice Springs area (Kemp, 1976) and the Lake Eyre Basin (Alley, 1998) as early as the Middle Eocene, but desert-like conditions were probably not fully established until the Late Pliocene. For example, Fujioka et al (2005) showed, using cosmogenic 21 Ne and 10 Be, that stony deserts in northern South Australia formed 2-4 Ma, while Chen and Barton (1991) showed that the change from fluvio-lacustrine to saline playa sedimentation in Lake Amadeus, southwest of Alice Springs, occurred around 1 Ma. Also, as far as is known, based on TL/OSL ages, the longitudinal dune systems in Central Australia are entirely of Quaternary age (e.g.…”

“…Lowest rates (<0.5 m Ma À1 ) occur on silcrete and quartzite plateaus, and the crests of low granite inselbergs in regions that currently receive less than 400 mm yr À1 rainfall (e.g. Bierman and Caffee, 2002;Belton et al, 2004;Fujioka et al, 2005). Rates are typically one to two orders of magnitude greater, on sloping surfaces, under soil cover, along streams, on less resistant lithologies and/or where rainfall is higher (e.g.…”