An engine for global plant diversity: highest evolutionary turnover and emigration in the American tropics.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the processes that have generated the latitudinal biodiversity gradient and the continental differences in tropical biodiversity remains a major goal of evolutionary biology. Here we estimate the timing and direction of range shifts of extant flowering plants (angiosperms) between tropical and non-tropical zones, and into and out of the major tropical regions of the world. We then calculate rates of speciation and extinction taking into account incomplete taxonomic sampling. We use a recently published fossil calibrated phylogeny and apply novel bioinformatic tools to code species into user-defined polygons. We reconstruct biogeographic history using stochastic character mapping to compute relative numbers of range shifts in proportion to the number of available lineages thro

SUBMITTER: Antonelli A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4389561 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature