ABSTRACT
This chapter characterizes the Andean region, details some plant and animal taxa (endemic or characteristic) and discusses the biotic relationships with other areas of the world. Within the Andean region, it focuses on the Subantarctic, Central Chilean and Patagonian subregions. The chapter provides a geological scenario accounting for the evolution of the region and an event-based biogeographical analysis based on weevil taxa. Segovia and Armesto hypothesized the existence of niche conservatism in the warm-temperate biota of the Andean region. They considered that to understand adequately the current distributional patterns in South America it is necessary to consider the influence of an Austral biota that became differentiated during the fragmentation of Gondwanaland. The chapter also presents schematic representation of several Austral individual tracks as well as three perspectives of the Andean region, namely, Subantarctic subregion, Andean region sensu stricto and Andean region sensu lato.
