Coalescent Simulation and Paleodistribution Modeling for Tabebuia rosealba Do Not Support South American Dry Forest Refugia Hypothesis.

ABSTRACT: Studies based on contemporary plant occurrences and pollen fossil records have proposed that the current disjunct distribution of seasonally dry tropical forests (SDTFs) across South America is the result of fragmentation of a formerly widespread and continuously distributed dry forest during the arid climatic conditions associated with the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), which is known as the modern-day dry forest refugia hypothesis. We studied the demographic history of Tabebuia rosealba (Bignoniaceae) to understand the disjunct geographic distribution of South American SDTFs based on statistical phylogeography and ecological niche modeling (ENM). We specifically tested the dry forest refugia hypothesis; i.e., if the multiple and isolated patches of SDTFs are current climatic relicts of a wi

SUBMITTER: de Melo WA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4961443 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature