Molecular Panbiogeography of the Tropics - (Species and Systematics) by Michael Heads (Hardcover)

About the Book

"An engaging attempt to simultaneously retain the best of several traditionally different approaches in historical biogeography, incorporating concepts and data from each into a new perspective on Croizat's vision of Earth and life evolving together."--Brett R. Riddle, University of Nevada, Las Vegas"A fascinating story, well-told and engaging, about a world now receding into the distance." Robert Calder, University of Saskatchewan

Book Synopsis

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.

From the Back Cover

"An engaging attempt to simultaneously retain the best of several traditionally different approaches in historical biogeography, incorporating concepts and data from each into a new perspective on Croizat's vision of Earth and life evolving together."--Brett R. Riddle, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Review Quotes

"[A] marvel. . . . [Heads's] writing guides the reader to crisp understanding. . . . It should be widely read."--Gareth Nelson "Systematic Biology" (8/28/2012 12:00:00 AM)

"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'."--Peter J. James "Biological Journal of the Linnean Society" (12/17/2012 12:00:00 AM)

"[An] important book and subject."--Brenden S. Holland, Pacific Biosciences Research Center, University of Hawaii "Frontiers Of Biogeography" (1/2/2013 12:00:00 AM)

"This book is a very interesting contribution to evolutionary biogeography."-- "Qtly Review Of Biology" (12/19/2012 12:00:00 AM)

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.