Contents include: North America: landforms; North America: climate, plants and animals; North America: history and culture; Introducing South America; South America: landforms; South America: climate, plants and animals; South America: history and culture; Continental connections and plate tectonics; Land bridges: the narrow link; Land bridges: dropping seas.

This series supports the study of continents, providing information on each continent as well as the way continents affect the whole world - oceans, climate, plants, animals and human culture.

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.

Contents include: The old world connection; Europe: landforms; Europe: climate, plants and animals; Europe: history and culture; Introducing Asia; Asian lands and land regions; Asia: climate, plants and animals; Asia: history and culture; Introducing Africa; African landscapes; Africa: climate, plants and animals; Africa: history and culture.

It is now well known that the concept of drifting continents became an estab lished theory during the 1960s. Not long after this "revolution in the earth sciences," researchers began applying the continental drift model to problems in historical biogeography. One such problem was the origin and dispersal of the New World monkeys, the Platyrrhini. Our interests in this subject began in the late 1960s on different conti nents quite independent of one another in the cities of Florence, Italy, and Berkeley, California. In Florence in 1968, A. B. Chiarelli, through stimulating discussions with R. von Koenigswald and B. de Boer, became intrigued with the possibility that a repositioning of the continents of Africa and South America in the early Cenozoic might alter previous traditional conceptions of a North American origin of the Platyrrhini. During the early 1970s this con cept was expanded and pursued by him through discussions with students while serving as visiting professor at the University of Toronto. By this time, publication of the Journal of Human Evolution was well underway, and Dr. Chiarelli as editor encouraged a dialogue emphasizing continental drift models of primate origins which culminated in a series of articles published in that journal during 1974-75. In early 1970, while attending the University of California at Berkeley, R. L. Ciochon was introduced to the concept of continental drift and plate tectonics and their concomitant applications to vertebrate evolution through talks with paleontologist W. A. Clemens and anthropologist S. L. Washburn.

Contents include: What is a continent? The makings of a continent; Continental drift; Plate tectonics; Continental landscapes: mountains; Continental landscapes: erosion; Oceans and continents; Climate and continents; The wildlife of continents; People and continents; Relationships between continents.

Island continents -- Introducing Australia -- Australia: land and landforms -- Australia: climate, plants and animals -- Australia: history and culture -- Introducing Antarctica -- Antarctica: land and landforms -- Antarctica: climate, plants and animals -- Antarctica: discovery and exploration -- The making of island continents -- Changes in climate -- Isolation and wildlife.