Molecular Panbiogeography of the Tropics

by Michael Heads

Overview

Molecular studies reveal highly ordered geographic patterns in plant and animal distributions. The tropics illustrate these patterns of community immobilism leading to allopatric differentiation, as well as other patterns of mobilism, range expansion, and overlap of taxa. Integrating Earth history and biogeography, Molecular Panbiogeography of the Tropics is an alternative view of distributional history in which groups are older than suggested by fossils and fossil-calibrated molecular clocks. The author discusses possible causes for the endemism of high-level taxa in tropical America and Madagascar, and overlapping clades in South America, Africa, and Asia. The book concludes with a critique of adaptation by selection, founded on biogeography and recent work in genetics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520271968
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	01/04/2012
Series:	Species and Systematics , #4
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	576
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Michael Heads is a former Senior Lecturer in Ecology at the University of the South Pacific. He is now an independent scholar living in New Zealand.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Evolution in Space
Chapter 2. Evolution in Time
Chapter 3. Evolution and Biogeography of Primates: A New Model Based on Molecular Phylogenetics, Vicariance and Plate Tectonics
Chapter 4. Biogeography of New World Monkeys
Chapter 5. Primates in Africa and Asia
Chapter 6. Biogeography of the Central Pacific: Endemism, Vicariance and Plate Tectonics
Chapter 7. Biogeography of the Hawaiian Islands: The Global Context
Chapter 8. Distribution Within the Hawaiian Islands
Chapter 9. Biogeography of Pantropical and Global Groups
Chapter 10. Evolution in Space, Time, and Form: Beyond Centers of Origin, Dispersal, and Adaptation

Glossary
Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"[A] marvel. . . . [Heads's] writing guides the reader to crisp understanding. . . . It should be widely read."—Systematic Biology

"This book is a very interesting contribution to evolutionary biogeography."—Quarterly Review of Biology

Editorial Reviews

"I cannot do better than to sum up Heads’ book with the words Darwin used to praise Wallace’s work on geographical distribution in 1876. This is a ‘. . . grand and memorable work, which will last for years as the foundation of all future treatises’."

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society - Peter J. James

[An] important book and subject.

Frontiers Of Biogeography - Brenden S. Holland

[A] marvel. . . . [Heads’s] writing guides the reader to crisp understanding. . . . It should be widely read.

Systematic Biology - Gareth Nelson

[A] marvel. . . . [Heads’s] writing guides the reader to crisp understanding. . . . It should be widely read.

Systematic Biology

This book is a very interesting contribution to evolutionary biogeography.

Qtly Review Of Biology

"[A] marvel. . . . [Heads's] writing guides the reader to crisp understanding. . . . It should be widely read."--Systematic Biology

"This book is a very interesting contribution to evolutionary biogeography."--Qtly Review of Biology

"[An] important book and subject."--Frontiers of Biogeography

"[A] marvel. . . . [Heads's] writing guides the reader to crisp understanding. . . . It should be widely read."--Systematic Biology

From the Publisher