Special edition on the Isthmus of Panama

We edited a special edition of the Bulletin of Marine Science entitled “Environmental, ecological, and evolutionary change in seas across the Isthmus of Panama”. This volume evolved from a colloquiumheld in Bocas del Toro, Panama (see photo of participants).The 13 research articles expands our knowledge of the historical and modern-day processes that have shaped life in Tropical American Seas. The articles deal with a wide range of topics and are brought together to stimulate collaborative research that breaks down the barriers among disciplines and time scales.Papers in this collection confront the recent challenge to the established age of the formation of the isthmus of Panama, provide new methods that reveal marine paleoenvironments in the region, assess ecological and evolutionary events over deep time, and evaluate the pre-columbian to modern-day influences of humans on Caribbean coasts of lower Central America.