The flora and fauna of Southeast Asia are exceptionally diverse. The region includes several terrestrial biodiversity hotspots and is the principal global hotspot for marine diversity, but it also faces the most intense challenges of the current global biodiversity crisis. Providing reviews, syntheses and results of the latest research into Southeast Asian earth and organismal history, Biotic Evolution and Environmental Change in Southeast Asia investigates the history, present and future of the fauna and flora of this bio- and geodiverse region. Leading authorities in the field explore key topics including palaeogeography, palaeoclimatology, biogeography, population genetics and conservation biology, illustrating research approaches and themes with spatially, taxonomically and methodologically focused case studies. Biotic Evolution and Environmental Change in Southeast Asia also presents methodological advances in population genetics and historical biogeography. Exploring the fascinating environmental and biotic histories of Southeast Asia, this is an ideal resource for graduate students and researchers as well as environmental NGOs.
List of contributors
Foreword Tony Whitten
Preface
1. Introduction
2. Wallace, Darwin and Southeast Asia: the real field site of evolution
3. Sundaland and Wallacea: geology, plate tectonics and palaeogeography
4. A review of the Cenozoic palaeoclimate history of Southeast Asia
5. Quaternary dynamics of Sundaland forests
6. The Malesian floristic interchange: plant migration patterns across Wallace's Line
7. Biogeography and distribution patterns of Southeast Asian palms
8. Historical biogeography inference in Malesia
9. Biodiversity hotspots, evolution and coral reef biogeography: a review
10. Tsunami impacts in the marine environment: review and results from studies in Thailand
11. Coalescent-based analysis of demography: applications to biogeography on Sulawesi
12. Aquatic biodiversity hotspots in Wallacea - the species flocks in the ancient lakes of Sulawesi, Indonesia
13. Molecular biogeography and phylogeography of the freshwater fauna of the Indo-Australian Archipelago
14. Patterns of biodiversity discovery through time: an historical analysis of amphibian species discoveries in the Southeast Asian mainland and adjacent island archipelagos
15. Wildlife trade as an impediment to conservation as exemplified by the trade in reptiles in Southeast Asia
16. The tropical peat swamps of Southeast Asia: human impacts on biodiversity, hydrology and carbon dynamics
17. Southeast Asian biodiversity crisis
Index
David Gower is a researcher in the Department of Zoology at the Natural History Museum, London. An evolutionary and organismal herpetologist, his studies focus on caecilians, snakes and Triassic diapsid reptiles. Kenneth Johnson is a researcher in the Department of Palaeontology at the Natural History Museum, London, studying the long-term biological and environmental history of coral reef ecosystems in Southeast Asia and the Caribbean James Richardson is a researcher at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and University of the Andes in Bogota. He studies the biogeographic history of tropical flowering plants. Brian Rosen is a researcher in the Department of Zoology at the Natural History Museum, London, specialising in ecology, diversity and biogeography of reefs, and coral growth, form and taxonomy. Lukas Rüber is at the Department of Zoology at the Natural History Museum, London. He is an evolutionary biologist studying speciation, adaptive radiation, phylogeography, biogeography and systematics, especially of fishes. Suzanne Williams is a researcher in the Department of Zoology at the Natural History Museum, London. She studies global, regional and local factors important in shaping tropical marine biodiversity.