Published January 25, 2023 | Version v2
Journal article Open

Precipitation is the main axis of tropical plant phylogenetic turnover across space and time

Creators

  • 1. University of Zurich

Description

Note that Version 2 of this dataset is identical to Version 1, except that it now contains the correct version of the metachronogram tree file (the previous version of this file did not contain all node attributes). Please use Version 2, and apologies for the inconvenience.

See 'Read me.rtf' (included in 'Data S1.rar') for a description of the files included in this dataset.

Abstract of study: Early natural historians – Comte de Buffon, von Humboldt and De Candolle – established environment and geography as two principal axes determining the distribution of groups of organisms, laying the foundations for biogeography over the subsequent 200 years, yet the relative importance of these two axes remains unresolved. Leveraging phylogenomic and global species distribution data for Mimosoid legumes, a pantropical plant clade of c. 3,500 species, we show that the water availability gradient from deserts to rainforests dictates turnover of lineages within continents across the tropics. We demonstrate that 95% of speciation occurs within a precipitation niche, showing profound phylogenetic niche conservatism, and that lineage turnover boundaries coincide with isohyets of precipitation. We reveal similar patterns on different continents, implying that evolution and dispersal follow universal processes.

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