[Taxacom] Tortoise self-rafting sea voyage

[John Grehan]

I noticed the nice propaganda statement in the link as follows:

"trans-oceanic dispersal is assumed to be the mechanism by which
tortoises and many other animals became established on islands
throughout the world"

It's propadanda because it implies that everyone makes this assumption.
Of course without the assumption the floatation is no more
biogeographically singificant than the thousands of bugs that fly to New
Zealand every year.

This all comes down to the dichotomy between the belief that individual
cases of mobility are the test of biogeography, or whether spatial
analysis is the test of the biogeographic signficance of individual
mobility.

John Grehan


> -----Original Message-----
> From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-
> bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Geoff Read
> Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 5:25 PM
> To: TAXACOM
> Subject: [Taxacom] Tortoise self-rafting sea voyage
> 
> Interesting report on a large tortoise which walked out of the sea on
a
> Tanzania beach, reckoned to have drifted from Aldabra atoll (740km).
It
> had a lovely crop of barnacles.
> 
> Gerlach, J., Muir, C. & Richmond, M.D. (2006) The first substantiated
> case of trans-oceanic tortoise dispersal. Journal of Natural History,
> 40, 2403 - 2408.
> 
>
http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&title=Journal%20of%20N
at
>
ural%20History&issn=0022%2d2933&volume=40&issue=41&spage=2403&epage=2408
&d
>
oi=10%2e1080%2f00222930601058290&date=2006&atitle=The%20first%20substant
ia
>
ted%20case%20of%20trans%2doceanic%20tortoise%20dispersal&aulast=Gerlach&
au
> first=Justin&auinit=D%2e&sid=informa%3ainformaworld
> 
> 
> Geoff
> --
>    Geoff Read <g.read at niwa.co.nz>
>     http://www.annelida.net/
>     http://www.niwascience.co.nz/ncabb/
> 
> 
> 
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