Description

This book consists of a series of papers that help to unravel the taxonomy of the phylum Brachiopoda and describe associated marine communities in the Levant. These faunas inhabited shallow shelf environments near the boundary of the Indo-African and Tethyan faunal realms near the Jurassic equator along the southern Tethyan margin. This research is part of a long-term project that aims to delineate the distribution of brachiopods across faunal realm boundaries and reconstruct the biogeographic history of the region. The work provides a more detailed analysis of the endemism that is characteristic of the faunas of northern Sinai, the Negev and Jordan, and will also aid in the construction of a biogeographic framework for Jurassic strata in the Middle East. It represents an important contribution to our knowledge of the evolution of modern marine communities because their roots lie in the ecological diversifications of the Jurassic.