Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
sin running northeast near Port au Prince. This region includes the lowest
point of land in the Antilles, and hurricanes, so frequent in the Antilles, are
often funneled through this lowland with devastating effect.
The geohistory of Jamaica is of interest to biologists because few middle
Eocene to late Miocene terrestrial rocks are known from the island. This
means it was mostly submerged between 42 and 10 Ma, so after the biota
was annihilated at 65 Ma from the asteroid impact, it was destroyed again
at 42 Ma by inundation. The modern biota is therefore of a relatively recent
geologic origin. This may account, in part, for the fewer endemic plants
on Jamaica (around 923 species, less than 10 million years old, and small)
compared to Cuba (around 3178 endemic species, more than 45 million
years old, and larger; Kier et al. 2009).
The Lesser Antilles also emerged along a subduction zone in about the
middle Eocene (49-44 Ma). Earthquakes are most common in the Greater
Antilles where the Caribbean plate slides past the North American plate,
but with relatively limited subduction into the Puerto Rican Trench, while
volcanism is more frequent in the Lesser Antilles where the North Amer-
ican (Atlantic) plate dips under the Caribbean plate. Mt. Pelée on Mar-
tinique erupted on 8 May 1902, killing over 30,000 people. There were
two survivors, one of whom was a prisoner being held for stabbing a friend
during a drunken brawl. Just before he was scheduled to be released, he
showed a remarkable lack of judgment by running away, partying all night,
then turning himself in the next day. He was put in solitary confi nement,
which happened to be in an underground cell, the day before Mt. Pelée
erupted. He was badly burned from the heat and fumes but survived,
and because of his ordeal he was pardoned. He later joined the Barnum
and Bailey Circus and toured the world as “Sampson, the lone survivor of
Mt. Pelée” (Zebrowski 2002).
Modern Vegetation
The vegetation of the Antilles consists of about 11,000 species of vascular
plants (Santiago-Valentín and Francisco-Ortega 2008). Our knowledge of
the vegetation comes in large part from the collections of Swedish botanist
Erik Ekman in the early 1900s. He was myopic of purpose, maniacal in
intensity, an admirable eccentric who traveled on foot and made exhausting
trips to remote areas. He lived in poverty, was perpetually undernourished,
often ill, indifferent to his physical appearance, and uniquely asocial. After
one exhausting trip he fell asleep on the porch of a hut in Haiti in an espe-
cially disheveled state. He awoke to a visitor prodding him with his foot and
