Climatic niche divergence and long-distance dispersal contributed to the pantropical intercontinental disjunctions of a liana lineage (<i>Uncaria</i>, Rubiaceae).

ABSTRACT: The formation of pantropical intercontinental disjunction (PID) in plants has generally been attributed to vicariance, boreotropical migration, and long-distance dispersal. However, this pattern has primarily been examined in herbs, shrubs, and trees, and less commonly studied in interlayer plant taxa. Here we examined evolutionary processes that resulted in the PID of a pantropical woody liana, Uncaria (Rubiaceae). We first constructed a comprehensive phylogeny by employing 73 plastid protein-coding sequences from 29 accessions of Uncaria (including 16 newly sequenced) from different continents. We then inferred divergence time, history and ecological niche evolution of this genus. Our results showed that Uncaria consisted of four well-supported clades that belonged t

SUBMITTER: Huang XH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12496531 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature