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The Diversification of Extant Angiosperms in the South America Dry Diagonal

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Neotropical Diversification: Patterns and Processes

Part of the book series: Fascinating Life Sciences ((FLS))

Abstract

The evolutionary processes leading to lineage diversification in Neotropical plants are still poorly understood. Here, we provide a synthesis of phylogeographic patterns and unravel whether the Neogene geological events or the Quaternary climatic changes drove lineage diversification of Angiosperms in the South America dry diagonal. Despite the high number of plant species in the dry diagonal (~19,000) only few species (30) were studied. Major lineage divergences occurred in the Pliocene but most lineage diversifications occurred at the Early and Middle Pleistocene. The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) may have had a more local and regional effect in differentiation among populations and patterns of genetic diversity distribution. Species responded differently to the Quaternary climate changes leading to high variation in spatial patterns in genetic diversity and phylogeographic patterns. Finally, our findings challenge the hypothesis of glacial refugia and the importance of the last glacial maximum (LGM) in the diversification of Angiosperms in the South America dry diagonal.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants to the research network Rede Cerrado CNPq/PPBio (project no. 457406/2012-7) and CAPES/PROCAD (project no. 88881.068425/2014-01). NEL received a CAPES/PNPD fellowship. RGC has continuously been supported by productivity grant from CNPq, which we gratefully acknowledge. We thank Toby Pennington for helpful comments in the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratório de Genética & Biodiversidade, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, GO, Brasil

    Rosane G. Collevatti & Natácia E. Lima

  2. Instituto Federal Goiano Campus Rio Verde, Rio Verde, GO, Brasil

    Luciana C. Vitorino

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  1. Rosane G. Collevatti
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  2. Natácia E. Lima
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  3. Luciana C. Vitorino
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Paleoecology, Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain

    Valentí Rull

  2. Department of Biology, City College of New York, New York, NY, USA

    Ana Carolina Carnaval

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Collevatti, R.G., Lima, N.E., Vitorino, L.C. (2020). The Diversification of Extant Angiosperms in the South America Dry Diagonal. In: Rull, V., Carnaval, A. (eds) Neotropical Diversification: Patterns and Processes. Fascinating Life Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31167-4_21

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