ABSTRACT
The insect fauna of the island continent of Australia is rich and diverse (Austin et al. 2004; Cranston 2010), with over 200,000 species (Yeates et al. 2003; Raven and Yeates 2007), and entomologists have attempted to explain the biogeography of the fauna for the past two centuries. Insect origins have now been traced back almost half a billion years (Misof et al. 2014), and it should be no surprise that almost all insect orders, except the small and unusual polyneopteran orders Zoraptera, Grylloblattodea, Mantophasmatodea and the holometabolous order Rhaphidioptera, are present in Australia. The crown
Introduction .............................................................................................................................................215 Methods Used in Australian Insect Biogeography ..................................................................................217 Faunal Provinces .....................................................................................................................................218 Faunal Elements ..................................................................................................................................... 220 Testing the Provinces and Elements ....................................................................................................... 221 Geological, Evolutionary and Ecological Processes .............................................................................. 222 Insect Biogeography in the Systematic Period: Processes Revealed Using Syntheses of Distribution, Phylogenetic Relationships and Divergence Times .......................................................... 223 Austral Groups, Extinction and Dispersal: Emerging Complexity of Australian Insect Biogeography over the Past 160 Million Years ...................................................................................... 224 Gondwanan Breakup, Vicariance and Dispersal .................................................................................... 225 Biogeographic Relationships in the Mesic Biome (Bassian Province) ................................................. 227 Patterns of Endemism and Levels of Divergence in the Mesic Biome .................................................. 228 Biogeographic Relationships and Endemism in the Arid Biome (Eremaean Province) ........................ 229 Biogeographic Relationships and Endemism in the Monsoon Tropics Biome (Torresian Province) .....231 Testable Models of Historical Biogeography in Australia ......................................................................231 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................................ 233 References .............................................................................................................................................. 234
groups of almost all insect orders were in place from the beginning of the Carboniferous to the beginning of the Triassic, 350-250 mya, and during the vast temporal range of insect evolution Australia has been broadly connected to other continents through Antarctica until 35 mya, and interaction with the Asian plate through Wallacea began around 10 million years later. The recent Tertiary isolation of Australia represents a tiny fraction of the branch length joining modern Australian insect lineages to the root of the insect phylogenetic tree, essentially a footnote in the annals of insect diversication. Thus, the emphasis on the unique insect fauna of Australia needs to be balanced with the strong links that the fauna has with other parts of the world, derived from this long history of connectedness. Modern biogeographic inquiry is possible only in the few groups that have well understood taxonomy, distribution and phylogenetic relationships. With only about 25% of the insect fauna described at species level (Yeates et al. 2003; Raven and Yeates 2007), much more basic descriptive research, phylogenetic reconstruction and surveys of distribution will underpin our future biogeographic understanding.
