Description
Book SynopsisShallow water marine molluscan faunas are distributed in a pattern of distinct, geographically definable areas. This makes mollusks ideal for studying the distribution of organisms in the marine environment and the processes and patterns that control their evolution. Biogeography and Biodiversity of Western Atlantic Mollusks is the first book to use quantitative methodologies to define marine molluscan biogeographical patterns. It traces the historical development of these patterns for the subtropical and tropical western Atlantic. The book discusses the multistage process of evolving new taxa caused by eustatic fluctuations, ecological stress, and evolutionary selection.
Drawing on his decades of intensive field work, the author defines three western Atlantic molluscan provinces and 15 subprovinces based on his Provincial Combined Index, a modern refinement of Valentineâs 50% rule. The faunal provincesâCarolinian, Caribbean, and Brazilianâare discussed in detail. The
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"Professor Petuch draws upon an extraordinary wealth of personal experience and many decades of field work studying both recent and fossil mollusks throughout the western Atlantic, and has produced a prolific body of publications on these faunas. … [He] is to be commended for clearly and succinctly defining a useful tool for quantifying faunal distinctions among geographic regions. This methodology can also be used to produce a series of testable hypotheses that will serve both as a foundation and as a point of departure for additional research into the effects of geography and ecology on the evolution and diversification of faunas."
—From the Foreword by M. G. Harasewych, Ph.D., National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
Table of ContentsIntroduction: American Molluscan Faunas in Time and Space. The Molluscan Provincial Concept in the Tropical Western Atlantic. Provinces of the Tropical Western Atlantic. Molluscan Biodiversity in the Georgian Subprovince. Molluscan Biodiversity in the Subprovinces of the Florida Peninsula. Southern and Western Subprovinces of the Carolinian Province. Northern Subprovinces of the Caribbean Province. Molluscan Biodiversity in the Nicaraguan Subprovince. Molluscan Biodiversity in the Venezuelan Subprovince. Molluscan Biodiversity in the Grenadian and Surinamian Subprovinces. Northern Subprovinces of the Brazilian Province. Molluscan Biodiversity in the Paulinian Subprovince. Bibliography. Appendices. Index.
