Bones, Clones, and Biomes: The History and Geography of Recent Neotropical Mammals

About the book
As explorers and scientists have known for decades, the Neotropics harbor a fantastic array of our planet’s mammalian diversity, from capybaras and capuchins to maned wolves and mouse opossums to sloths and sakis. This biological bounty can be attributed partly to the striking diversity of Neotropical landscapes and climates and partly to a series of continental connections that permitted intermittent faunal exchanges with Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and North America. Thus, to comprehend the development of modern Neotropical mammal faunas requires not only mastery of the Neotropics’ substantial diversity, but also knowledge of mammalian lineages and landscapes dating back to the Mesozoic.

Bones, Clones, and Biomes offers just that—an exploration of the development and relationships of the modern mammal fauna through a series of studies that encompass the last 100 million years and both Central and South America. This work serves as a complement to more taxonomically driven works, providing for readers the long geologic and biogeographic contexts that undergird the abundance and diversity of Neotropical mammals. Rather than documenting diversity or distribution, this collection traverses the patterns that the distributions and relationships across mammal species convey, bringing together for the first time geology, paleobiology, systematics, mammalogy, and biogeography. Of critical importance is the book’s utility for current conservation and management programs, part of a rapidly rising conservation paleobiology initiative.

Table of contents

1 Introduction to the History and Geography of Neotropical Mammals
 Bruce D. Patterson and Leonora P. Costa

Part 1. The Geological Setting

2 Punctuated Isolation: The Making and Mixing of South America’s Mammals Darin A. Croft

3 Origins, Radiations, and Distribution of South American Mammals: From Greenhouse to Icehouse Worlds Francisco J. Goin, Javier N. Gelfo, Laura Chornogubsky, Michael O. Woodburne, and Thomas Martin

4 Cenozoic Andean Faunas: Shedding New Light on South American Mammal Evolution, Biogeography, Environments, and Tectonics John J. Flynn, Reynaldo Charrier, Darin A.Croft, and Andre R. Wyss

5 On the Evolution of Large Size in Mammalian Herbivores of Cenozoic Faunas of Southern South America Sergio F. Vizcaíno, Guillermo H. Cassini, Néstor Toledo, and M. Susana Bargo

6 Evolution of the South American Carnivores (Mammalia, Carnivora): A Paleontological Perspective Francisco J. Prevosti and Leopoldo H. Soibelzon

7 A Molecular View on the Evolutionary History and Biogeography of Neotropical Carnivores (Mammalia, Carnivora)
Eduardo Eizirik

Part 2. Regional Patterns

8 Hierarchical Organization of Neotropical Mammal Diversity and Its Historical Basis
 Sergio Solari, Paúl M. Velazco, and Bruce D. Patterson

9 West Indian Mammals: The Old, the New, and the Recently Extinct
 Liliana M. Dávalos and Samuel T. Turvey

10 Biogeography of Central American Mammals: Patterns and Processes
 Ana Laura Almendra and Duke S. Rogers

11 Biogeography of Mammals from the Guianas of South America
 Burton K. Lim

12 Speciation in Amazonia: Patterns and Predictions of a Network of Hypotheses
 Cibele R. Bonvicino and Marcelo Weksler

13 Historical Fragmentation Shaping Vertebrate Diversification in the Atlantic Forest Biodiversity Hotspot
 Leonora P. Costa and Yuri L. R. Leite

14  Mammals of the Cerrado and Caatinga: Distribution Patterns of the Tropical Open Biomes of Central South America
 Ana Paula Carmignotto, Mario de Vivo, and Alfredo Langguth

15 The Role of the Andes in the Diversification and Biogeography of Neotropical Mammals
 Bruce D. Patterson, Sergio Solari, and Paúl M. Velazco

16 Mammalian Biogeography of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego
 Enrique P. Lessa, Guillermo D´Elía, and Ulyses F. J. Pardiñas