Metapopulation vicariance explains old endemics on young volcanic islands

Terrestrial plants and animals on oceanic islands occupy zones of volcanism found at intraplate localities and along island arcs at subduction zones. The organisms often survive as metapopulations, or populations of separate sub-populations connected by dispersal. Although the individual islands and their local subpopulations are ephemeral and unstable, the ecosystem dynamism enables metapopulations to persist in a region, more or less in situ, for periods of up to tens of millions of years. As well as surviving on systems of young volcanic islands, metapopulations can also evolve there; tectonic changes can break up widespread insular metapopulations and produce endemics restricted to fewer islands or even a single island. These processes explain the presence of old endemic clades on young islands, which is often reported in molecular clock studies, and the many distribution patterns in island life that are spatially correlated with tectonic features. Metapopulations can be ruptured by sea floor subsidence, and this occurs with volcanic loading in zones of active volcanism and with sea floor cooling following its production at mid-ocean ridges. Metapopulation vicariance will also result if an active zone of volcanism is rifted apart. This can be caused by the migration of an arc (by slab rollback) away from a continent or from another subduction zone, by the offset of an arc at transform faults and by sea floor spreading at mid-ocean ridges. These mechanisms are illustrated with examples from islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Endemism on oceanic islands has usually been attributed to chance, long-distance dispersal, but the processes discussed here will generate endemism on young volcanic islands by vicariance.