Closure of the Isthmus of Panama: The near-shore marine record of Costa Rica and western Panama

History of upwelling in the Tropical Eastern Pacific and the paleogeography of the Isthmus of Panama

“…Uplift rates based on paleobathymetries of marine sediments from across the Isthmus suggest that the majority of the volcanic arc was submerged up until very recently with bathyal sediments of latest Miocene age present in the Caribbean and Pacific of western Panama, the Caribbean of central Panama and eastern Panama (Coates et al, 1992;Collins, 1992Collins, , 1993Collins, , 1996Coates, 1999;Coates et al, 2000Coates et al, , 2003Coates et al, , 2004Coates et al, , 2005. Strong similarities between Pacific and Caribbean Mio-Pliocene biota (Chaisson and Ravelo, 2000;O'Dea et al, 2007b) and near-identical environmental conditions on either side of the Isthmus (Keigwin, 1978(Keigwin, , 1982Keller et al, 1989;Haug and Tiedemann, 1998;Haug et al, 2001) in the Early Pliocene imply the CAS was maintained in some form until the mid-Pliocene.…”

Molecular phylogenetics and biogeography of transisthmian and amphi-Atlantic needlefishes (Belonidae: Strongylura and Tylosurus): perspectives on New World marine speciation

“…Environmental changes occurring over the mid-Miocene to Pleistocene development of the Panama isthmus may have provided at least four distinct opportunities for allopatric speciation (Bermingham et al, 1997b;Knowlton and Weigt, 1998;Knowlton et al, 1993). The first opportunity would have coincided with the low sea level stand in the mid-Miocene at 10.5 mya (Haq et al, 1987), the second in the late Miocene with extensive shoaling and emergence of Central American isthmian landmasses (7-5 mya; Bermingham and Martin, 1998;Coates and Obando, 1996), the third with the celebrated Pliocene completion of the Central American terrestrial isthmian corridor (3.1-2.8 mya; Coates et al, 1992;Keigwin, 1978), and the fourth with an early Pleistocene marine breach of the Central American Isthmus in the area of central Panama (2 mya; Coates and Obando, 1996;Cronin and Dowsett, 1996). Geological evidence for a Pleistocene breach of the Panama Isthmus is controversial, but historical biogeographic component analysis presented by Bermingham and Martin (1998) also suggests the extinction of some freshwater fish mtDNA lineages roughly corresponding in time and space with a putative breach.…”

Molecular phylogeny and phylogeography of free-living Bryozoa (Cupuladriidae) from both sides of the Isthmus of Panama

“…The Isthmus of Panama provides a natural laboratory for addressing this question (Cunningham and Collins, 1994;Lessios, 1998), and it makes sense to focus there on taxa for which relevant phylogenetic, phylogeographic, paleontological, and ecological data can be obtained, that is, taxa with a diverse living fauna on both sides as well as an adequate fossil record. Among the most speciose genera in the Neogene fossil record (Coates et al, 1992) along the isthmus are the bryozoan genera Cupuladria and Discoporella (Fig. 1) of the family Cupuladriidae (Cheetham et al, 1999).…”