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Rapid biological speciation driven by tectonic evolution in New Zealand

Nature Geoscience volume 9, pages 140–144 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Collisions between tectonic plates lead to the rise of new mountain ranges that can separate biological populations and ultimately result in new species1. However, the identification of links between tectonic mountain-building and biological speciation is confounded by environmental and ecological factors2,3,4. Thus, there are surprisingly few well-documented examples of direct tectonic controls on terrestrial biological speciation. Here we present examples from New Zealand, where the rapid evolution of 18 species of freshwater fishes has resulted from parallel tectonic landscape evolution. We use numerical models to reconstruct changes in the deep crustal structure and surface drainage catchments of the southern island of New Zealand over the past 25 million years. We show that the island and mountain topography evolved in six principal tectonic zones, which have distinct drainage catchments that separated fish populations. We use new and existing5,6 phylogenetic analyses of freshwater fish populations, based on over 1,000 specimens from more than 400 localities, to show that fish genomes can retain evidence of this tectonic landscape development, with a clear correlation between geologic age and extent of DNA sequence divergence. We conclude that landscape evolution has controlled on-going biological diversification over the past 25 million years.

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Figure 1: Maps showing distributions of key freshwater fish species and divergent populations.
Figure 2: Summary evolutionary trees for South Island’s tectonic and geomorphic zones.
Figure 3: Results of numerical mechanical modelling of progressive evolution of topography in a strike-slip tectonic regime with inhomogeneous crust.
Figure 4: Results of numerical mechanical modelling of progressive development of topography during oblique convergent deformation of inhomogeneous crust.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported financially by the Marsden Fund (Royal Society of New Zealand) and University of Otago. Digital topographic images were derived from www.geographx.co.nz.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geology Department, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand

    Dave Craw

  2. GNS Science, PO Box 30368, Lower Hutt 5040, New Zealand

    Phaedra Upton

  3. School of Biological Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart 7001, Tasmania, Australia

    Christopher P. Burridge

  4. Zoology Department, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand

    Graham P. Wallis & Jonathan M. Waters

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  1. Dave Craw
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Contributions

D.C. and J.M.W. conceived the project and prepared the original manuscript. J.M.W., G.P.W. and C.P.B. gathered and compiled the fish phylogenetic and phylogeographic data. P.U. conducted the numerical modelling. All authors refined the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Dave Craw.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Craw, D., Upton, P., Burridge, C. et al. Rapid biological speciation driven by tectonic evolution in New Zealand. Nature Geosci 9, 140–144 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2618

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