The Mexican Transition Zone

Juan J. Morrone is a Professor of Biogeography, Systematics, and Comparative Biology at the Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico City. He has written extensively on biogeography and led more than 110 graduate and postgraduate courses in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, and Spain. He is an editor for several journals, e.g. Cladistics, Mastozoología Neotropical, Acta Entomológica Chilena, Zootaxa and Phytotaxa, and Dugesiana, Hidrobiológica, Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad, and Acta Zoológica Mexicana. He has published over 250 scientific papers and 30 books on evolutionary biogeography, phylogenetic systematics, biogeographic regionalization and evolution.

Chapter 1. What is a transition zone? An ecological and evolutionary characterization of transition zones, where they are found and how their biotas are assembled.
Chapter 2. What is evolutionary biogeography? A brief characterization of the field of evolutionary biogeography, with a description of the different methods that are currently used.
Chapter 3. A historical perspective of the Mexican Transition Zone A historiographic analysis of the Mexican Transition Zone, detailing the main events and authors that have contributed to it.
Chapter 4. The cenocrons of the Mexican Transition Zone A description of the cenocrons of the Mexican Transition Zone, namely, Paleoamerican, Mexican Plateau, Mountain Mesoamerican, Nearctic and Typical Neotropical. For each cenocron, examples of plant and animal taxa are presented and illustrated. Their historical assembly is also analyzed.
Chapter 5. Regionalization of the Mexican Transition Zone A characterization of the biogeographic provinces recognized for the Mexican Transition Zone, namely, Sierra Madre Occidental, Sierra Madre Oriental, Transmexican Volcanic Belt, Sierra Madre del Sur and Chiapas Highlands. Additionally, examples of plants and animals endemic to each province are provided.
Chapter 6. Perspectives for the future A discussion of the current understanding of biotic assembly in the Mexican Transition Zone and the perspectives for future studies. Additionally, some issues concerning the analysis of transition zones will be discussed.