Menispermaceae and the diversification of tropical rainforests near the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary

? Modern tropical rainforests have the highest biodiversity of terrestrial biomes and are restricted to three low-latitude areas. However, the actual timeframe during which tropical rainforests began to appear on a global scale has been intensely disputed. Here, we used the moonseed family (Menispermaceae), an important physiognomic and structural component of tropical rainforests on a worldwide basis, to obtain new insights into the diversification of this biome. ? We integrated phylogenetic, biogeographic and molecular dating methods to analyse temporal and spatial patterns of global diversification in Menispermaceae. ? Importantly, a burst of moonseed diversification occurred in a narrow window of time, which coincides with the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary. Our data also suggest multiple independent migrations from a putative ancestral area of Indo-Malay into other tropical regions. ? Our data for Menispermaceae suggest that modern tropical rainforests may have appeared almost synchronously throughout the three major tropical land areas close to, or immediately following, the K-Pg mass extinction.