Reconciling fossils with phylogenies reveals the origin and macroevolutionary processes explaining the global cycad biodiversity.

ABSTRACT: The determinants of biodiversity patterns can be understood using macroevolutionary analyses. The integration of fossils into phylogenies offers a deeper understanding of processes underlying biodiversity patterns in deep time. Cycadales are considered a relict of a once more diverse and globally distributed group but are restricted to low latitudes today. We still know little about their origin and geographic range evolution. Combining molecular data for extant species and leaf morphological data for extant and fossil species, we study the origin of cycad global biodiversity patterns through Bayesian total-evidence dating analyses. We assess the ancestral geographic origin and trace the historical biogeography of cycads with a time-stratified process-based model. Cycads originated in the

SUBMITTER: Coiro M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10953041 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature