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  • Velvet worm (Phylum Onychophora) on a sand island, in a wetland: Flushed from a Pleistocene refuge by recent rainfall?

    Author(s)
    Marshall, Jonathan C
    Martin, Hailey
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Marshall, Jonathan C.
    Year published
    2019
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    Velvet worms (Onychophora) are restricted to moist, humid microclimates, but are poorly known from south‐east Queensland, Australia, where they are typically rainforest fauna. We made the unlikely observation of one of these invertebrates clinging to floating debris in a wetland on North Stradbroke Island. Palaeoecology of this wetland reveals that it once was within rainforest and has remained moist for at least the past 80 000 years, thus potentially harbouring an onychophoran population as a relic of a past broader, rainforest distribution. The presence of this animal, floating in the wetland, can be explained by recent ...
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    Velvet worms (Onychophora) are restricted to moist, humid microclimates, but are poorly known from south‐east Queensland, Australia, where they are typically rainforest fauna. We made the unlikely observation of one of these invertebrates clinging to floating debris in a wetland on North Stradbroke Island. Palaeoecology of this wetland reveals that it once was within rainforest and has remained moist for at least the past 80 000 years, thus potentially harbouring an onychophoran population as a relic of a past broader, rainforest distribution. The presence of this animal, floating in the wetland, can be explained by recent climate, since the wetland filled following heavy rainfall shortly before the observation. This highlights the importance of groundwater‐fed wetlands as evolutionary refugia for moisture‐dependent biota.
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    Journal Title
    Austral Ecology
    Volume
    45
    Issue
    2
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1111/aec.12844
    Subject
    Environmental sciences
    Biological sciences
    Science & Technology
    Life Sciences & Biomedicine
    Ecology
    Environmental Sciences & Ecology
    evolutionary refugia
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/394410
    Collection
    • Journal articles

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