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1. The other side of the Sahulian coin: biogeography and evolution of Melanesian forest dragons (Agamidae)

   https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blz125  

   Tallowin, Oliver J. S.; Meiri, Shai; Donnellan, Stephen C.; Richards, Stephen J.; Austin, Christopher C.; Oliver, Paul M. (November 2019, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society)

   Abstract New Guinea has been considered both as a refuge for mesic rainforest-associated lineages that contracted in response to the late Cenozoic aridification of Australia and as a centre of biotic diversification and radiation since the mid-Miocene or earlier. Here, we estimate the diversity and a phylogeny for the Australo-Papuan forest dragons (Sauria: Agamidae; ~20 species) in order to examine the following: (1) whether New Guinea and/or proto-Papuan Islands may have been a biogeographical refuge or a source for diversity in Australia; (2) whether mesic rainforest environments are ancestral to the entire radiation, as may be predicted by the New Guinea refuge hypothesis; and (3) more broadly, how agamid ecological diversity varies across the contrasting environments of Australia and New Guinea. Patterns of lineage distribution and diversity suggest that extinction in Australia, and colonization and radiation on proto-Papuan islands, have both shaped the extant diversity and distribution of forest dragons since the mid-Miocene. The ancestral biome for all Australo-Papuan agamids is ambiguous. Both rainforest and arid-adapted radiations probably started in the early Miocene. However, despite deep-lineage diversity in New Guinea rainforest habitats, overall species and ecological diversity is low when compared with more arid areas, with terrestrial taxa being strikingly absent. 

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2. Kinship in the Alor-Pantar Languages

   Holton, Gary (January 2014, The Alor-Pantar Languages: History and Typology)

   This chapter compares kinship terminologies and kinship practices in eight Alor-Pantar languages forming a broad geographic and typological sample of the family. In spite of the close genealogical relationship between the languages, there is surprisingly little evidence of shared (cognate) kinship vocabulary, and the kinship systems exhibit great variation. The westernmost languages distinguish both maternal and paternal cross-cousins (children of opposite-sex siblings) as ideal marriage partners, while at the opposite extreme in the highlands of Alor are found languages which expressly forbid cross-cousin marriage. Even among languages whose kinship systems are roughly similar, the terms themselves are often not cognate. Likewise, cognate terms often have varying semantics across the languages. The current distribution of kinship terminologies suggests a recent drift toward symmetric exchange systems which distinguish both maternal and paternal cross-cousins, perhaps under the influence of neighboring Austronesian languages. 

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3. Lineage diversity in a Melanesian lizard radiation (Gekkonidae: Nactus) further highlights exceptional diversity and endemism in eastern Papua New Guinea

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s13127-024-00655-w  

   Oliver, Paul_M; Kraus, Fred; Austin, Christopher_C; Tedeschi, Leonardo_G; O’Brien, Aurora_R; Maddock, Simon_T (October 2024, Organisms Diversity & Evolution)

   Abstract New Guinea and surrounding islands are home to some of the richest assemblages of insular biodiversity in the world. The key geological drivers of species richness in this region are largely considered to be mountain uplift and development of offshore archipelagos—some of which have accreted onto New Guinea—with the role of mountain uplift and elevational gradients receiving more attention than the role of isolation on islands. Here, we examine the distribution of lineage richness and body-size diversity in a radiation of Melanesian lizards that is almost entirely absent from montane habitats but closely associated with islands—the geckos of the genusNactus. Our data indicate that eastern New Guinea—centred on the East Papuan Composite Terrane (EPCT)—shows particularly high levels of endemism and body-size diversity and is also inferred to be a source area for multiple independent colonisations elsewhere in New Guinea, the Pacific and Australia. TwoNactuslineages in Australia have closest relatives occurring to the north of New Guinea’s Central Cordillera, suggesting dispersal through this area in the mid-Miocene, possibly via seaways that would have isolated the islands to the east and west of the proto-Papuan region. Syntopic species tend to differ in body length; however, at a phylogenetic scale, this trait appears to be conservative, with small-sized and large-sized species clustered into separate lineages. These data suggest that species richness in MelanesianNactusis in part explained by morphological diversification enabling the presence of sympatric communities to exist, but to a greater extent by multiple instances of dispersal and extensive allopatric and parapatric speciation, especially in and around the islands of the EPCT. 

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4. Systematics and biogeography of a Sunda-Papuan snake lineage (Natricidae: Tropidonophis Jan 1863)

   https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae039  

   Roberts, Jackson_R; Kraus, Fred; Allison, Allen; Richards, Stephen_J; Iova, Bulisa; Tjaturadi, Burhan; Ruane, Sara; Austin, Christopher_C (April 2024, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society)

   Abstract Sunda-Papuan keelback snakes (Serpentes: Natricidae: Tropidonophis Jan 1863) include 20 species distributed from the Philippines south-east through the Moluccas to New Guinea and Australia. Diversity of this insular snake lineage peaks on the island of New Guinea. Previous phylogenetic studies incorporating Tropidonophis have been limited to multi-locus Sanger-sequenced datasets with broad squamate or family-level focus. We used a targeted-sequence capture approach to sequence thousands of nuclear ultraconserved elements (UCEs) to construct the most comprehensive sequence-based phylogenetic hypothesis for this genus and estimate ancestral biogeography. Phylogenies indicate the genus is monophyletic given recent taxonomic reassignment of Rhabdophis spilogaster to Tropidonophis. All UCE phylogenies recovered a monophyletic Tropidonophis with reciprocally monophyletic Philippine and New Guinean clades. Divergence dating and ancestral range estimation suggest dispersal to New Guinea from the Philippines to have occurred during the Mid-Miocene via the Oceanic Arc Terranes. From Late Miocene into the Pliocene the genus experienced rapid diversification from orogeny of the New Guinean Central Cordillera from Oceanic Arc Terrane accretion on the northern boundary of the Sahul Shelf. Future collecting of missing taxa from the Moluccas and Indonesian Papua will better the understanding of non-volant faunal biogeography and diversification in this tectonically complex Pacific arena. 

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5. New Taheitia H. et A. Adams, 1863, with revisional notes on the Papuan Truncatellidae (Caenogastropoda: Truncatelloidea)

   Greke, K; Slapcinsky, J (June 2021, Biodiversity Biogeography and Nature Conservation in Wallacea and New Guinea)

   Telnov, D; Barclay, M; Pauwels, O (Ed.)

   Surveys of snails from New Guinea and surrounding islands provide new distributional and ecological data for Truncatellidae from the Papuan Region. We present an annotated checklist of all Papuan Truncatellidae and the first identification key for the terrestrial genus Taheitia H. and A. Adams, 1863. Unlike widespread marine and estuarine species of Truncatella, the Papuan Taheitia usually have single island ranges and are restricted to forested limestone habitats. New anatomical data suggests that many earlier reports of Taheitia with multi-island distributions appear to be the result of confusion between superficially similar species. Eight new Taheitia species are described: T. biaka sp. nov. from Biak, T. bifurca sp. nov. from Manus,T. gebeensis sp. nov. from Gebe, T. gigantea sp. nov. from Waigeo, T. jodiae sp. nov. from New Britain, T. longpela sp. nov. from New Britain, T. malagan sp. nov. from New Ireland, and T. telnovi sp. nov. from Misool. 

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