The oldest Holocene Caribbean mangroves and the postglacial sea level rise : biogeographical implications

Abstract

The Neotropical mangroves originated in the southern Caribbean region during the Eocene (50-40 Ma), underwent a major evolutionary turnover in the Eocene/Oligocene transition (~34 Ma), and diversified during the Neogene (~23 to 2.6 Ma), to attain their present biogeographical and taxonomic configuration in the Quaternary. Due to their transitional sea-land nature, these tidal forested ecosystems have been considered to be excellent proxies for sea-level position in past paleoenvironmental reconstructions. For the same reason, mangroves are expected to be significantly affected by the predicted future sea-level rise that, in combination with anthropogenic deforestation, are the main threats for the conservation of these singular tropical/subtropical coastal forests. In the Caribbean region, it has been estimated that, under current deforestation rates, what has taken evolution ~50 million years to build, could disappear in barely three centuries...