Palaeoecological reconstructions depend on accurate species identification: Examples from South Island, New Zealand, Pachyornis (Aves: Dinornithiformes)

Abstract

Accurate identification of fossil remains is fundamental to analysis of the composition of New Zealand extinct bird assemblages and their habitats (e.g. wet forest, dry forest, shrubland, seral vegetation, and low and high altitudes) through space and time. Until the advent of ancient genetic analyses in the early 1990s, identification of fossil bird remains was based perforce solely on morphology (Archey 1941; Oliver 1949; Worthy 1988) and morphometrics (Cracraft 1976a, b, c; Worthy 1987, 1989, 1992, 1994). Most research has been focused on moa (Aves: Dinornithiformes), a group of large (20– 200 kg) flightless palaeognathous birds (Worthy & Holdaway 2002) presently assigned to nine species in three families (Megalapterygidae; Dinornithidae; Emeidae) (Bunce et al. 2009). From the late 1990s (e.g. Cooper et al. 2001), the development of moa ancient DNA (aDNA) was rapid and greater reliance is now placed on use of aDNA analyses over morphology and morphometrics (Huynen et al. 2003; Bunce et al. 2005; Huynen et al. 2008; Allentoft et al. 2009; Bunce et al. 2009; Seabrook-Davison et al. 2009; Oskam et al. 2010; Allentoft et al. 2012; Rawlence et al. 2012; Holdaway et al. 2014; Huynen et al. 2014). Show more