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Phylogeography of California examines the evolution of ancient, recent, native, and migratory taxa to elucidate major and minor evolutionary events that shaped the distribution, radiation, and speciation of the biota of California. Phylogeography of California also interprets evolutionary history in a geological context and reviews new and emerging phylogeographic patterns.
Schierenbeck provides a survey of the phylogeography of the flora and fauna of California's diverse biota by major organismal groups and supports scholars and researchers who are asking probing questions about evolutionary diversification in a region defined by both physical and political boundaries. Life history and ecological characteristics, which play prominent roles in the various outcomes for respective clades, are also considered throughout the work.
Readers will appreciate Phylogeography of California's analysis of research that helps assess one of the major challenges of phylogeographic studies: understanding changes in population structures shaped by geological and geographical processes.
Further consideration is given to conservation implications and recommendations related to the biogeographic provinces that roughly define the state of California, and to predictions related to climate change. California is one of only 25 acknowledged biological hotspots worldwide, and the phylogeographic history of the state can be extrapolated to study other regions in western North America.
Acknowledgments
PART I GEOLOGIC AND ORGANISMAL HISTORY
1. INTRODUCTION
2. HISTORICAL PROCESSES THAT SHAPED CALIFORNIA
3. THE CENOZOIC ERA: PALEOGENE AND NEOGENE PERIODS (65–2.6 Ma)
4. QUATERNARY GEOLOGIC AND CLIMATIC CHANGES
PART II PHYLOGEOGRAPHIC PATTERNS IN VARIOUS TAXA
5. CONIFERS
6. FLOWERING PLANTS
7. INSECTS
8. FISHES
9. AMPHIBIANS
10 REPTILES
11. BIRDS
12. MAMMALS
13. MARINE MAMMALS
PART III SUMMARY
14. CONSISTENT PHYLOGEOGRAPHIC PATTERNS ACROSS TAXA AND MAJOR EVOLUTIONARY EVENTS
15. CONSERVATION IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Bibliography
Kristina A. Schierenbeck is a professor of Biological Sciences at California State University Chico and a passionate advocate for conservation. She teaches evolution, plant diversity and systematics. Her research has focused on plant evolution, especially plant hybridization, invasive species, and rare taxa. She has authored or co-authored dozens of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles appearing in journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, American Journal of Botany, and Molecular Ecology.
"Schierenbeck manages to cover both the biological and the physical histories of California in one readable volume that thus provides an important and unprecedented overview of the state's evolutionary past."
– John Avise, Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UC Irvine, and author of Phylogeography: The History and Formation of Species
"This is a novel and compelling treatment of a whole new body of information that has not been reviewed in this way before. While it informs scholars in the fields of geography and biology about the origins of the very diverse and wonderful set of organisms found in [California] [...] , it could certainly be used in the classroom as well."
– Peter Raven, President Emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden and author of Environment and Biology
