Biogeography of Mediterranean Hotspot Biodiversity: Re-Evaluating the 'Tertiary Relict' Hypothesis of Macaronesian Laurel Forests.

ABSTRACT: The Macaronesian laurel forests (MLF) are dominated by trees with a laurophyll habit comparable to evergreen humid forests which were scattered across Europe and the Mediterranean in the Paleogene and Neogene. Therefore, MLF are traditionally regarded as an old, 'Tertiary relict' vegetation type. Here we address the question if key taxa of the MLF are relictual. We evaluated the relict hypothesis consulting fossil data and analyses based on molecular phylogenies of 18 representative species. For molecular dating we used the program BEAST, for ancestral trait reconstructions BayesTraits and Lagrange to infer ancestral areas. Our molecular dating showed that the origins of four species date back to the Upper Miocene while 14 originated in the Plio-Pleistocene. This coincides with the decline

SUBMITTER: Kondraskov P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4501571 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature