The S outh A merican continent is composed of several biogeographical regions harbouring
the highest biodiversity on the globe, encompassing five of the world's biodiversity 'hot …

Lower C entral A merica (LCA) provides a geologically complex and dynamic, richly
biodiverse model for studying the recent assembly and diversification of a N eotropical biota …

One of the greatest challenges for biodiversity conservation is the poor understanding of
species diversity. Molecular methods have dramatically improved our ability to uncover …

The rise of the Isthmus of Panama, linked to a number of climatic, paleoceanographic, and
biological events, has been studied mostly from indirect, often distal, geochemical and biotic …

Amphibian populations around the world are experiencing unprecedented declines
attributed to a chytrid fungal pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Despite the severity …

Marine ecosystems are suffering severe depletion of apex predators worldwide [1–4]; shark
declines are principally due to conservative life-histories and fisheries overexploitation [5–8] …

The Standard Model of the formation of the Isthmus of Panama proposes that final closure
occurred at 4–3 Ma. The model is based on evidence from studies of marine stratigraphy …

Explaining the origins and evolution of Amazonian biodiversity continues to be an
outstanding question in evolutionary biology. A plethora of mechanisms for promoting …

Understanding how historical processes have either similarly, or differentially, shaped the
evolution of lineages or biotic assemblages is important for a broad spectrum of fields …

The completion of the land bridge between North and South America approximately 3.5–3.1
million years ago (Ma) initiated a tremendous biogeographic event called the Great …