A connection between two land masses, especially continents (e. G. , the Bering land bridge linking Alaska and Siberia across the Bering Strait) that allows migration of plants and animals from one land mass to the other. Before the widespread acceptance of continental drift, the existence of former land bridges was often invoked to explain faunal and floral similarities between continents now widely separated. On a smaller scale, the term may be applied to land connections that have now been removed by recent tectonics or sea-level changes (e. G. , between northern France and southeastern England).