Evidence of Pleistocene plant extinction and diversity from Regatta Point, western Tasmania, Australia

Abstract

The Early Pleistocene Regatta Point sediments contain macrofossils that suggest that generic and specific rainforest diversity was higher in the region than it is today both locally and regionally, but the diversity was probably lower than it was for most of the Tertiary. The sediments contain extinct species of conifers and angiosperms which have closest living relatives in a wide range of environments, mainly wet forests of warmer areas than western Tasmania, but also relatively cool and dry areas. Simple models of climatically driven extinction explain these extinctions poorly. It is more likely that there was a wide range of causes of extinctions. New species, Acacia bulbosa, Rubus nebuloides, Quintinia tasmanensis, Oxylobium pungens, Laurophyllum australum and Myrtaceaephyllum pleistocenicum, are described.