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    A Natural History of the New World: The Ecology and Evolution of Plants in the Americas
    A Natural History of the New World: The Ecology and Evolution of Plants in the Americas
    A Natural History of the New World: The Ecology and Evolution of Plants in the Americas
    Ebook388 pages8 hours

    A Natural History of the New World: The Ecology and Evolution of Plants in the Americas

    By Alan Graham

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    About this ebook

    The paleoecological history of the Americas is as complex as the region is broad: stretching from the Arctic Circle to Tierra del Fuego, the New World features some of the most extraordinary vegetation on the planet. But until now it has lacked a complete natural history. Alan Graham remedies that with A Natural History of the New World. With plants as his scientific muse, Graham traces the evolution of ecosystems, beginning in the Late Cretaceous period (about 100 million years ago) and ending in the present, charting their responses to changes in geology and climate.

                By highlighting plant communities’ roles in the environmental history of the Americas, Graham offers an overdue balance to natural histories that focus exclusively on animals. Plants are important in evolution’s splendid drama. Not only are they conspicuous and conveniently stationary components of the Earth’s ecosystems, but their extensive fossil record allows for a thorough reconstruction of the planet’s paleoenvironments. What’s more, plants provide oxygen, function as food and fuel, and provide habitat and shelter; in short, theirs is a history that can speak to many other areas of evolution.

    A Natural History of the New World is an ambitious and unprecedented synthesis written by one of the world’s leading scholars of botany and geology. 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateDec 15, 2010
    ISBN9780226306827
    A Natural History of the New World: The Ecology and Evolution of Plants in the Americas
    Author

    Alan Graham

    Alan Graham is the president, CEO, and founder of Mobile Loaves & Fishes, a social profit enterprise that delivers meals and provides homes to homeless people on the streets of Austin, San Antonio, New Orleans, Nashville, Minneapolis, Providence, and New Bedford.  Alan was born in Houston in 1955. He grew up in Alvin, Texas and attended the College of Mainland and later the University of Texas. In 1978 he left UT to begin a career in real estate. He was a partner in many of Central Texas’ most successful real estate development projects. In the mid-1990s, Alan co-founded the Lynxs Group, which built the air cargo facility at Austin’s new airport in 1997, and went on to build similar facilities at airports around the country.  Alan left the Lynxs Group in 1997 and managed Austin’s cargo port as the new airport was opening. At the same time, Alan had the seed of the idea for Mobile Loaves & Fishes. He and the other founders started by making sack lunches and serving them from the back of a green minivan. His focus now is the development and building of the Community First! Village, a 27-acre master-planned community that provides affordable, sustainable housing and a supportive community for the disabled and chronically homeless in Austin.  Visit: http://mlf.org  

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