Post-Boreotropical dispersals explain the pantropical disjunction in Paederia (Rubiaceae).

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Pantropical intercontinental disjunction is a common biogeographical pattern in flowering plants exhibiting a discontinuous distribution primarily in tropical Asia, Africa and the Americas. Only a few plant groups with this pattern have been investigated at the generic level with molecular phylogenetic and biogeographical methods. Paederia (Rubiaceae) is a pantropical genus of 31 species of woody lianas, with the greatest species diversity in continental Asia and Madagascar and only two species from tropical America. The aim of this study was to reconstruct the biogeographical history of Paederia based on phylogenetic analyses to explore how the genus attained its pantropical distribution.

Methods

Maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference were used for phy

SUBMITTER: Nie ZL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3631337 | biostudies-literature | 2013 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature