RECONSTRUCTING THE EVOLUTION AND BIOGEOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF TRIBE CARDUEAE (COMPOSITAE)

• • Premise of the study: Tribe Cardueae (thistles) forms one of the largest tribes in the family Compositae (2400 species), with representatives in almost every continent. The greatest species richness of Cardueae occurs in the Mediterranean region where it forms an important element of its flora. New fossil evidence and a nearly resolved phylogeny of Cardueae are used here to reconstruct the spatiotemporal evolution of this group. • Methods: We performed maximum parsimony and Bayesian phylogenetic inference based on nuclear ribosomal DNA and chloroplast DNA markers. Divergence times and ancestral area reconstructions for main lineages were estimated using penalized likelihood and dispersal–vicariance analyses, respectively, and integrated over the posterior distribution of the phylogeny from the Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo analysis to accommodate uncertainty in phylogenetic relationships. • Key results: The phylogeny shows that subtribe Cardopatiinae is sister to the remaining subtribes, and subtribes Carlininae and Echinopsinae appear as consecutive sister-clades to the Carduinae/Centaureinae. Tribe Cardueae is inferred to have originated around the Mid Eocene in West Asia, which is also the ancestral area of most subtribes within Cardueae. Diversification within each subtribe began during the Oligocene-Miocene period. • Conclusions: Most diversification events within Cardueae are related to the continuous cycles of area connection and division between the Anatolian microplate and the western Mediterranean Basin during the Oligocene-Miocene and with the uplift of the Himalayan range from the Miocene onward. From these two regions, thistles dispersed and colonized the rest of the continents (e.g., the New World, Africa, and Australia), most likely during the colder Pliocene-Pleistocene period.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Bayes-DIVA

Bering Land Bridge

biogeography

Cardueae

Carduoideae

Himalayan uplift

chloroplast dna analysis

dispersal-vicariance analysis

molecular

phylogeny

divergence times

combined nuclear

sequence data

generic

delimitation

family asteraceae

bayesian-approach

sunflower family

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)