Authors:	Pirie, Michael Oliver, E. G. H. Mugrabi de Kuppler, A. Gehrke, Berit Le Maitre, N. C. Kandziora, Martha Bellstedt, D. U.
Title:	The biodiversity hotspot as evolutionary hot-bed : spectacular radiation of Erica in the Cape Floristic Region
Online publication date:	13-Oct-2022
Year of first publication:	2016
Language:	english
Abstract:	Background The disproportionate species richness of the world’s biodiversity hotspots could be explained by low extinction (the evolutionary “museum”) and/or high speciation (the “hot-bed”) models. We test these models using the largest of the species rich plant groups that characterise the botanically diverse Cape Floristic Region (CFR): the genus Erica L. We generate a novel phylogenetic hypothesis informed by nuclear and plastid DNA sequences of c. 60 % of the c. 800 Erica species (of which 690 are endemic to the CFR), and use this to estimate clade ages (using RELTIME; BEAST), net diversification rates (GEIGER), and shifts in rates of diversification in different areas (BAMM; MuSSE). Results The diversity of Erica species in the CFR is the result of a single radiation within the last c. 15 million years. Compared to ancestral lineages in the Palearctic, the rate of speciation accelerated across Africa and Madagascar, with a further burst of speciation within the CFR that also exceeds the net diversification rates of other Cape clades. Conclusions Erica exemplifies the “hotbed” model of assemblage through recent speciation, implying that with the advent of the modern Cape a multitude of new niches opened and were successively occupied through local species diversification.
DDC:	580 Pflanzen (Botanik) 580 Botanical sciences
Institution:	Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Department:	FB 10 Biologie
Place:	Mainz
ROR:	https://ror.org/023b0x485
DOI:	http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-7987
Version:	Published version
Publication type:	Zeitschriftenaufsatz
License:	CC BY
Information on rights of use:	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Journal:	BMC evolutionary biology 16
Pages or article number:	Art. 190
Publisher:	BioMed Central
Publisher place:	London
Issue date:	2016
ISSN:	1471-2148
Publisher URL:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-016-0764-3
Publisher DOI:	10.1186/s12862-016-0764-3
Appears in collections:	DFG-OA-Publizieren (2012 - 2017)