Recent advances in avian palaeobiology in New Zealand with implications for understanding New Zealand’s geological, climatic and evolutionary histories

New Zealand, long recognised as a land where birds dominate the terrestrial vertebrate biota, lacked an informative fossil record for the non-marine pre-Pleistocene avifauna until the twenty-first century. Here we review recent research that alters the known diversity of the fossil Paleogene–Neogene birds and our understanding of the origin of New Zealand’s recent or modern biota. Since 2010, there has been a 50% increase in the number of described fossil bird species (now 45) for the pre-Quaternary period. Many represent higher taxa that are new or listed for New Zealand for the first time, including 12 genera (35 total), nine family-level taxa (18 total), and seven ordinal taxa. We also review recent multidisciplinary research integrating DNA and morphological analyses affecting the taxonomic diversity of the Quaternary avifauna and present revised diversity metrics. The Holocene avifauna contained 217 indigenous breeding species (67% endemic) of which 54 (25%) are extinct.

长期以来被视为陆地脊椎动物生物群以鸟类为主导的新西兰，直至21世纪之前，都缺乏关于非海洋更新世前鸟类区系的详实化石记录。本文综述了近年来的相关研究进展：这些研究不仅改写了我们对古近纪-新近纪化石鸟类已知多样性的认知，也更新了我们对新西兰现生生物群起源的理解。自2010年以来，前第四纪已描述的化石鸟类物种数量增长了50%，目前共计45种。其中大量类群属于首次在新西兰被记录的新高级分类单元，包括12个属（总计35个）、9个科级分类群（总计18个）以及7个目级分类群。本文同时综述了近年来融合DNA与形态学分析的多学科研究，这些研究厘清了第四纪鸟类区系的分类多样性，并给出了修正后的多样性统计指标。全新世鸟类区系包含217种本土繁殖鸟类，其中67%为特有种，另有54种（占比25%）已灭绝。