The Biohistory of Florida.

Intro -- Introduction -- Florida Before Humans Arrived -- The Florida Platform and its African Origin -- Florida Emerges from the Sea -- Animals Migrating to Florida across Land Bridges -- The Ascendency of Grasses -- Coping in a Sea of Grass -- Humans Adapting to the Grass Revolution -- From Beringia to Florida -- Florida When Indians Reigned -- The First Florida Natives -- Consequences of Horse and Camel Extinctions in North America -- Florida in the Archaic Period: Adapting to Life without Megafauna -- The Woodland-Mississippian Transition: Maize (Corn) Farming in Florida -- Maize Agriculture's Production Limitations -- Florida After Europeans and Africans Arrived -- Implications of the Columbian Exchange -- Economic Incentives behind the Voyages of Discovery -- Malaria and the West African Slaves -- Europeans Arrive in Florida -- European Incursions into Indian Territory -- Spanish Mission Settlements and the Apalachicolas and Timucuans -- Rice, Slaves, and the Anglo-Spanish Struggle for Florida -- William Bartram's Descriptions of North Florida -- Florida Becomes a Part of the United States -- The Patriot War -- The Onset of the Seminole Indian Wars -- The Anglo-Appalachian Heritage of Florida's White Settlers -- Florida at the Cusp of Modernity -- Florida's First Highways -- The Alachua Trail -- The Bellamy Road -- Florida's First Railroads -- The Florida Railroad -- The Florida, Atlantic and Gulf Central Railroad -- Henry Flagler and the Florida East Coast Railway -- Henry Plant and the Savannah, Florida, and Western Railway -- W. Chipley, F. R. DeFuniak, and the Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad -- Hamilton Disston and His Attempts to Drain the South Florida Swamps -- The Punk Tree: A Misguided Attempt to Drain the Everglades -- The Plume Trade: A Tale of Wretched Excess -- Old-Growth Cypress and Pine Forests: Vanished Woodland Resources.

Cypress -- Pines -- Scrub Cattle: Cowboys Herding Them on Florida's Open-Range Grasslands -- Florida During the Anthropocene Epoch -- Anthropocene Florida during the First Half of the 20th Century -- The Power of Motion -- Railroads -- Roadways and the Internal Combustion Engine -- Air Travel -- Steamship Travel -- Demographic Changes -- Religious Intolerance -- Racial Intolerance -- Higher Education Institutions in Florida -- The University of Florida Complex -- Coping with Health Problems in the Early 20th Century -- Enhanced Biological Comprehension -- Anthropocene Florida Today -- Florida's Exponentially Growing Human Population -- Exponentially Diminishing Fossil Fuel Resources -- The Fossil Fuel Conundrum -- Fresh Water is a Renewable but Limited Florida Resource -- Science to the Rescue -- The Citrus Conundrum -- The Great Freezes -- Citrus Tristeza Virus -- Citrus Canker Disease -- Citrus Greening Disease -- A Tree's Perspective of Time in Florida -- Selected References -- Photo Credits.

From the Pleistocene to today--from vast prairies where shovel-tusked elephants roamed to vast orange groves interlaced with highways--Florida continues to evolve.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.