The Antillean Arc and the distribution of neotropical mosses

Abstract

The West Indies have strong continental affinities, but the strongest are with South America, not Central America as was once thought. Moss diversity is the result of migration after the Miocene; the patterns of distribution involving the West Indies and South or North America indicate both migration as well as floristic flows through the Antillean Arc. Speciation due to selective pressures in the changing climate of the Pleistocene gave rise to endemic taxa, but paleoendemics may have resulted in a previous archipelago condition.