Land Bridges: Ancient Environments, Plant Migrations, and New World Connections

by Alan Graham

Land bridges are the causeways of biodiversity. When they form, organisms are introduced into a new patchwork of species and habitats, forever altering the ecosystems into which they flow; and when land bridges disappear or fracture, organisms are separated into reproductively isolated populations that can evolve independently. More than this, land bridges play a role in determining global climates through changes to moisture and heat transport and are also essential factors in the development of biogeographic patterns across geographically remote regions.

In this book, paleobotanist Alan Graham traces the formation and disruption of key New World land bridges and describes the biotic, climatic, and biogeographic ramifications of these land masses’ changing formations over time. Looking at five land bridges, he explores their present geographic setting and climate, modern vegetation, indigenous peoples (with special attention to their impact on past and present vegetation), and geologic history. From the great Panamanian isthmus to the boreal connections across the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans that allowed exchange of organisms between North America, Europe, and Asia, Graham’s sweeping, one-hundred-million-year history offers new insight into the forces that shaped the life and land of the New World.

288 pages, Paperback

Published March 30, 2018

Reviews

[Ted Garver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Land Bridges by Alan Graham takes the reader into the world of changing landforms and the evolution of plants in a very readable, but scholarly way. I think this book could be for popular science readers or university level students of paleobotany, botany and geology. I am not a geologist, so I kept a geologic time diagram with me while reading. As for the botany I knew many names from the Northern Hemisphere, but I felt the occasional use of extensive botanical names from the tropics would only be known by someone trained in the field. Interspersed in the book are a number of interesting digressions that I felt added to the book. Likewise, discussions of human use of land bridges provided something more for the lay reader. Overall, I finished the book with a much better understanding of the role of plate tectonics in the dispersion and speciation of plants. I recommend this book for lovers of earth science and botany.

[The Inquisitive Biologist · Rating 5 out of 5]

Valuable to palaeobotanists first and foremost, this book provides much additional material of interest to a wider readership. See my full review at https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2018...