An ancient tropical origin, dispersals via land bridges and Miocene diversification explain the subcosmopolitan disjunctions of the liverwort genus Lejeunea.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the biogeographical and diversification processes explaining current diversity patterns of subcosmopolitan-distributed groups is challenging. We aimed at disentangling the historical biogeography of the subcosmopolitan liverwort genus Lejeunea with estimation of ancestral areas of origin and testing if sexual system and palaeotemperature variations can be factors of diversification. We assembled a dense taxon sampling for 120 species sampled throughout the geographical distribution of the genus. Lejeunea diverged from its sister group after the Paleocene-Eocene boundary (52.2 Ma, 95% credibility intervals 50.1-54.2 Ma), and the initial diversification of the crown group occurred in the early to middle Eocene (44.5 Ma, 95% credibility intervals 38.5-50.8 Ma). The DEC model ind

SUBMITTER: Lee GE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7445168 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature