Global patterns of Rhododendron diversity: The role of evolutionary time and diversification rates |
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| Authors: | Nawal Shrestha Zhiheng Wang Xiangyan Su Xiaoting Xu Lisha Lyu Yunpeng Liu Dimitar Dimitrov Jonathan D Kennedy Qinggang Wang Zhiyao Tang Xiaojuan Feng |
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| Institution: | 1. Institute of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China;2. Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark;3. College of Life Science, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China;4. School of Urban Planning and Design, Shenzhen Graduate School, Peking University, Shenzhen, China;5. Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway;6. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China |
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| Abstract: | Aim Understanding the evolution of the latitudinal diversity gradient (i.e. increase in species diversity towards the tropics) is a prominent issue in ecology and biogeography. Disentangling the relative contributions of environment and evolutionary history in shaping this gradient remains a major challenge because their relative importance has been found to vary across regions and taxa. Here, using the global distributions and a molecular phylogeny of Rhododendron, one of the largest genera of flowering plants, we aim to compare the relative contributions of contemporary environment, evolutionary time and diversification rates in generating extant species diversity patterns. Location Global. Time period Undefined. Major taxa studied Rhododendron. Methods We compiled the global distributions of all Rhododendron species, and constructed a dated molecular phylogeny using nine chloroplast genes and seven nuclear regions. By integrating these two datasets, we estimated the temporal trends of Rhododendron diversification, and explored the global patterns of its species diversity, net diversification rates, and species ages. Next, we reconstructed the geographical ancestral area of the clade. Finally, we compared the relative contribution of contemporary environment, time‐for‐speciation, and diversification rates on the species diversity pattern of Rhododendron. Results In contrast to the predictions of the time‐for‐speciation hypothesis, we found that although Rhododendron originated at a temperate latitude, its contemporary species diversity is highest in the tropics/subtropics, suggesting an into‐the‐tropics colonization for this genus. We found that the elevated diversification induced by heterogeneous environmental conditions in the tropics/subtropics shapes the global pattern of Rhododendron diversity. Main conclusions Our findings support tropical and subtropical mountains as not only biodiversity and endemism hotspots, but also as cradles for the diversification of Rhododendron. Our study emphasizes the need of unifying ecological and evolutionary approaches in order to gain comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms underlying the global patterns of plant diversity. |
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| Keywords: | ancestral area reconstruction evolutionary history habitat heterogeneity into‐the‐tropics species richness time‐for‐speciation tropical mountains |
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