Diversification dynamics in the Neotropics through time, clades and biogeographic regions
Abstract
The origins and evolution of the outstanding Neotropical biodiversity are a matter of intense debate. A comprehensive understanding is hindered by the lack of deep-time comparative data across wide phylogenetic and ecological contexts. Here, we quantify the prevailing diversification trajectories and drivers of Neotropical diversification in a sample of 150 phylogenies (12,512 species) of seed plants and tetrapods, and assess their variation across Neotropical regions and taxa. Analyses indicate that Neotropical diversity has mostly expanded through time (70% of the clades), while scenarios of saturated and declining diversity account for 21% and 9% of Neotropical diversity, respectively. Five biogeographic areas are identified as distinctive units of long-term Neotropical evolution, including Pan-Amazonia, the Dry Diagonal, and Bahama-Antilles. Diversification dynamics do not differ across these areas, suggesting no geographic structure in long-term Neotropical diversification. In contrast, diversification dynamics differ across taxa: plant diversity mostly expanded through time (88%), while a substantial fraction (43%) of tetrapod diversity accumulated at a slower pace or declined toward the present. These opposite evolutionary patterns may reflect different capacities for plants and tetrapods to cope with past climate changes.
Data availability
The chronogram dataset and the diversification results are archived in Dryad (72). All other data used or generated in this manuscript are presented in the manuscript, or its supplementary material.
-
The Origins and Drivers of Neotropical DiversityDryad Digital Repository, doi:10.5061/dryad.kwh70rz4w.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-10-LABX-25-01)
- Pierre-Olivier Antoine
- Frédéric Delsuc
- Fabien Condamine
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-17-CE31-0009)
- Pierre-Olivier Antoine
- Frédéric Delsuc
- Fabien Condamine
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (PID2020-120145GA-I00)
- Andrea S Meseguer
Comunidad Autonoma de Madrid, Atraccion de Talento (2019-T1/AMB-12648)
- Andrea S Meseguer
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (PID2019-108109GB-I00)
- Ricarda Riina
Swedish Research Council (2019-05191)
- Alexandre Antonelli
Natural Environment Research Council (NE/S014470/1)
- Guillaume Chomicki
Swiss Orchid Foundation
- Oscar A Pérez Escobar
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (IJCI-2017-32301)
- Andrea S Meseguer
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- David A. Donoso, Escuela Politécnica Nacional, Ecuador
Publication history
- Preprint posted: February 25, 2021 (view preprint)
- Received: October 7, 2021
- Accepted: October 26, 2022
- Accepted Manuscript published: October 27, 2022 (version 1)
- Accepted Manuscript updated: October 28, 2022 (version 2)
- Version of Record published: November 16, 2022 (version 3)
Copyright
© 2022, Meseguer et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 1,110
- Page views
-
- 360
- Downloads
-
- 0
- Citations
Article citation count generated by polling the highest count across the following sources: Crossref, PubMed Central, Scopus.
Download links
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Further reading
-
- Evolutionary Biology
The avian palaeognath phylogeny has been recently revised significantly due to the advancement of genome-wide comparative analyses and provides the opportunity to trace the evolution of the microstructure and crystallography of modern dinosaur eggshells. Here, eggshells of all major clades of Palaeognathae (including extinct taxa) and selected eggshells of Neognathae and non-avian dinosaurs are analysed with electron backscatter diffraction. Our results show the detailed microstructures and crystallographies of (previously) loosely categorized ostrich-, rhea-, and tinamou-style morphotypes of palaeognath eggshells. All rhea-style eggshell appears homologous, while respective ostrich-style and tinamou-style morphotypes are best interpreted as homoplastic morphologies (independently acquired). Ancestral state reconstruction and parsimony analysis additionally show that rhea-style eggshell represents the ancestral state of palaeognath eggshells both in microstructure and crystallography. The ornithological and palaeontological implications of the current study are not only helpful for the understanding of evolution of modern and extinct dinosaur eggshells, but also aid other disciplines where palaeognath eggshells provide useful archive for comparative contrasts (e.g. palaeoenvironmental reconstructions, geochronology, and zooarchaeology).
-
- Evolutionary Biology
Vertebrate limb morphology often reflects the environment due to variation in locomotor requirements. However, proximal and distal limb segments may evolve differently from one another, reflecting an anatomical gradient of functional specialization that has been suggested to be impacted by the timing of development. Here we explore whether the temporal sequence of bone condensation predicts variation in the capacity of evolution to generate morphological diversity in proximal and distal forelimb segments across more than 600 species of mammals. Distal elements not only exhibit greater shape diversity, but also show stronger within-element integration and, on average, faster evolutionary responses than intermediate and upper limb segments. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that late developing distal bones display greater morphological variation than more proximal limb elements. However, the higher integration observed within the autopod deviates from such developmental predictions, suggesting that functional specialization plays an important role in driving within-element covariation. Proximal and distal limb segments also show different macroevolutionary patterns, albeit not showing a perfect proximo-distal gradient. The high disparity of the mammalian autopod, reported here, is consistent with the higher potential of development to generate variation in more distal limb structures, as well as functional specialization of the distal elements.