The New Pangaea

Thanks again for the comments on my previous two posts about eugenics. As a novice blogger, I was surprised by their focus. I expected comments about the past--the historical significance of the eugenics movement--but instead the future dominated, with assorted speculations about the possible futures that genetic engineering could bring to our species. By coincidence, I've been thinking about the future as well, but from a different angle, thanks to a pair of papers in press at Trends In Ecology and Evolution. Instead of introduced genes, they're interested in introduced species. Before humans came on the scene, animals and plants had a much harder time moving to new places. Unless they were birds or windblown spores, they couldn't cross oceans to new continents or islands. They had to wait for a land bridge like Panama to emerge, offering a path to a new habitat. Then humans started moving species around. ...