Book review: Past environmental change in Latin America

Abstract

ISSN 1948‐6596 It is exciting to see such dynamic develop‐ ment of new approaches to island biogeography; whether one studies metapopulation dynamics, conservation biogeography, or adaptive radiations on oceanic islands, the field of island biogeogra‐ phy continues to offer broad horizons. If it is true that the paradigm initiated by MacArthur and Wil‐ son is being supplanted in both ecological and evolutionary island biogeography, the new para‐ digms owe much of their development to the ro‐ bust research agenda laid out 40 years ago. References news and update MacArthur, R.H. & Wilson, E.O. (1967) The theory of island biogeography. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Lawrence R. Heaney Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, USA e‐mail: lheaney@fieldmuseum.org http://fm1.fieldmuseum.org/aa/ staff_page.cgi?staff=lheaney Edited by Markus Eichhorn and Joaquin Hortal MacArthur, R.H. & Wilson, E.O. (1963) An equilibrium theory of insular zoogeography. Evolution, 17, book review Past environmental change in Latin America Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic History of Latin America Vegetation and Terrestrial Environments, by Alan Graham Missouri Botanical Garden Press, Flora Mesoamericana Vol. 4(1), June 2010, 617 pp. ISBN: 978‐ Price: $95.00 (Hardback) http://www.mbgpress.info/ This authoritative text by Prof. Alan Graham of the Missouri Botanic Gardens is based upon nearly four decades of research in the Neotropics. The volume provides a comprehensive foundation for understanding the past environmental change that underlies the biogeographic patterns found in Latin America (defined as 32 o N to 55 o S), and is a companion volume to his earlier work which fo‐ cused upon North America (Graham, 1999), in ad‐ dition to another recent book on the pa‐ laeoecological history of the New World (Graham, 2010 1 ). The introductory note to the Latin America book states that the target level is advanced un‐ dergraduate and graduate students, and that the aim is to be appropriate for use within university courses and seminars. In my opinion this book achieves this goal by providing up‐to‐date infor‐ mation in a well organised, concise and interesting manner. The book is logically set out and written in an easily‐digestible style which should be under‐ stood by most undergraduate students. Divided into three sections (Background, Database and Synthesis) and eight chapters, there is a natural progression in the format, which means that the text could easily be utilised as a support for a seminar series or lecture course. The background section contains a wealth of basic information on the climate, geography, geology and vegetation, which provides the scene‐setting details which would be required for any undergraduate lecture series on the past environments of Latin America. The clear and consistent geographic organisation of chapters and subsections also lends itself to the teacher or student who wishes to extract informa‐ tion on a particular region of interest; Mexico, the Antilles, Central America or South America. A review of this book will appear in a future issue of Frontiers of Biogeography. frontiers of biogeography 2.4, 2011 — © 2011 the authors; journal compilation © 2011 The International Biogeography Society