The Great American Biotic Interchange, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1985 Topics in Geobiology Series, Vol. 4

Two rather different elements combine to explain the origin of this volume: one scientific and one personal. The broader of the two is the scientific basis-the time for such a volume had arrived. Geology had made remarkable progress toward an understanding of the phys­ ical history of the Caribbean Basin for the last 100 million years or so. On the biological side, many new discoveries had elucidated the distributional history of terrestrial orga­ nisms in and between the two Americas. Geological and biological data had been combined to yield the timing of important events with unprecedented resolution. Clearly, when each of two broad disciplines is making notable advances and when each provides new insights for the other, the rewards of cross-disciplinary contacts increase exponentially. The present volume represents an attempt to bring together a group of geologists, paleontologists and biologists capable of exploiting this opportunity through presentation of an interdisciplinary synthesis of evidence and hypothesis concerning interamerican connections during the Cretaceous and Cenozoic. Advances in plate tectonics form the basis for a modern synthesis and, in the broadest terms, dictate the framework within which the past and present distributions of organisms must be interpreted. Any scientific dis­ cipline must seek tests of its conclusions from data outside of its own confines.

I. The Framework: An Overview.- 1 • A Kaleidoscope of Plates, Faunal and Floral Dispersals, and Sea Level Changes.- 2 • Caribbean Plate Relative Motions.- 3 • Geochronology and Land-Mammal Biochronology of the Transamerican Faunal Interchange.- II. In the Beginning: A Cretaceous-Paleogene View.- 4 • Mesozoic and Cenozoic Plate Evolution of the Caribbean Region.- 5 • South American Mammals in the Paleocene of North America.- 6 • Herpetofaunas of North and South America during the Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic: Evidence for Interchange?.- III. In Isolation: A Tertiary View.- 7 • Main Pathways of Mammalian Diversification in North America.- 8 • Main Pathways of Mammalian Diversification in South America.- 9 • South American Ungulate Evolution and Extinction.- 10 • Northern Waif Primates and Rodents.- IV. The Great Interchange: A Close View.- 11 • Caribbean Tectonics from a Paleomagnetic Perspective.- 12 • Sea Level, Climate, and the Central American Land Bridge.- 13 • History and Development of the Marine Invertebrate Faunas Separated by the Central American Isthmus.- 14 • Late Cenozoic Mammal Dispersals Between the Americas.- 15 • Fossil and Recent Avifaunas and the Interamerican Exchange.- V. After the Interchange: The Present View.- 16 • Plants, Their Pollinating Bees, and the Great American Interchange.- 17 • Patterns of Distribution of the Central American Ichthyofauna.- 18 • The American Herpetofauna and the Interchange.- 19 • Mammal Faunas of Xeric Habitats and the Great American Interchange.