Biogeography and ecology of south temperate forests
The floristic and ecological parallels between the forests of southeastern Australia, New Zealand and southern South America are striking. Forests of these distant areas have strong similarities in terms of physiognomy (e.g. dominance by tall evergreen trees, prominence of vines) and certain key taxa (e.g. Nothofagaceae, Winteraceae, Podocarpaceae, Auracariaceae) and these were noted in the writings of early travellers such as Hooker (1853) Darwin (1859) and later Skottsberg (1905) How these similarities arose, and the possibility of past biotic interchange between them, was widely discussed in the early years of scientific investigation (Hutton 1873) Although the discovery of plate tectonics led to widespread acceptance of vicariance as the main influence on southern hemisphere biogeography, more recent genetic evidence of trans oceanic dispersal (e.g. de Queiroz 2014) has forced a new discussion of the fossil evidence (Kooyman et al. 2014) However, although interest in these intriguing biogeographic links never completely vanished, for many years scientific activity within the far southern countries tended to be focused on understanding local history and ecology and, to a large extent, was published in their national journals. In May 1991 a workshop entitled 'Ecosystem comparisons across the South Pacific' organised by Peter H. Raven and Ebbe S. Nielsen, was held at the Bishop Museum, Honolulu. This workshop led to the birth of the informal organisation named 'Southern Connection' to promote communication and interaction between researchers interested in the flora and fauna, ecology and geology of the former Gondwanan landmasses. Despite remaining informal, Southern Connection has held eight triennial congresses in Australia, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand and South Africa. It has lived up to its name and numerous scientific interactions and collaborations have ensued over its 26 years of existence. The very well received volumes Ecology of the southern conifers (Enright Hill 1995) and The ecology and biogeography of Nothofagus forests (Veblen et al. 1996) both came out of Southern Connection symposia, and were breakthroughs in that they were the first comprehensive, up to date multi author overviews of the ecology of critical southern taxa, with a Gondwanan perspective. Comparative work, at least in part inspired or facilitated by Southern Connection, has continued: e.g. historical biogeography (Markgraf et al. 1995; Kooyman et al. 2014) plant functional types (McQueen 2000; Jimenez Castillo et al. 2007) vegetation dynamics (Grubb et al. 2013) and treelines and vegetation (Wardle et al. 2001; Ezcurra et al. 2008) This special issue of the New Zealand Journal of Botany