Paleoenvironment, tectonics, and paleobiogeography

Abstract

The Earth experienced dramatic transformations during the Cenozoic, with changing sea levels, climate, and tectonic events having major influences on the global biota. In South America, loss of the connection between Patagonia and Antarctica, Andean orogeny, and formation of the Isthmus of Panama defined the continent, as we know it today. These events had enormous effects on local faunas, with major consequences for their evolution and extinction. The Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI), a major natural experiment in biotic reorganization, was either enabled or at least greatly enhanced by land connections between North and South America during the late Neogene. The outcome of the meeting of previously separated biotas was a drastic change, both for the composition of South American faunas and the terrestrial ecosystems they inhabited.