Lizards took express train to Polynesia

Christopher C. Austin ()
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Christopher C. Austin: Evolutionary Biology Unit, South Australian Museum

Nature, 1999, vol. 397, issue 6715, 113-114

Abstract: Abstract The pattern of human colonization of the islands of the central and eastern Pacific is contentious. Two models have been widely considered: the ‘express train to Polynesia’ and the ‘entangled bank’ hypotheses1,2,3,4. Here I analyse the mitochondrial DNA sequences of the lizard Lipinia noctua, which lives alongside humans on these Pacific islands, with a view to distinguishing between these two hypotheses. From a phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequence variation, I find that these lizards colonized the central and eastern Pacific as a result of human-mediated dispersal, presumably as stowaways on early Polynesian canoes. The extreme genetic similarity between the different colonies indicates rapid colonization from a single source, which I take as support of the express-train hypothesis.

Date: 1999
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DOI: 10.1038/16365

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