A comparative zoogeographic view on the animal biodiversity of Indonesia and Japan

Abstract

The Indonesian Archipelago harbors unique fauna with a high level of species diversity and endemism. In this report, we provide basic information on the spatial and temporal aspects of the animal ecosystem in the Indonesian Islands. We discuss four zoogeographic topics, including (1) lineage dispersal events from the continents to the Islands, (2) speciation processes in the insular area, (3) accelerated phenotypic evolution and (4) human impact on commensal animals compared to previous cases in the Japanese Archipelago, in which the same eustatic geological events and global climatic changes have occurred.