Effects of climate and environmental heterogeneity on the phylogenetic structure of regional angiosperm floras worldwide

Abstract

The tendency of species to retain ancestral ecological distributions (phylogenetic niche conservatism) is thought to influence which species from a species pool can persist in a particular environment. Thus, investigating the relationships between measures of phylogenetic structure and environmental variables at a global scale can help understand the variation in species richness and phylogenetic structure in biological assemblages across the world. Here, we analyze a comprehensive data set including 341,846 species in 391 angiosperm floras worldwide to explore the relationships between measures of phylogenetic structure and environmental variables for angiosperms in regional floras across the world and for each of individual continental (biogeographic) regions. We find that the global phylogenetic structure of angiosperms shows clear and meaningful relationships with environmental factors. Current climatic variables have the highest predictive power, especially on phylogenetic metrics reflecting recent evolutionary relationships that are also related to current environmental heterogeneity, presumably because this favors plant speciation in various ways. We also find evidence that past climatic conditions, and particularly refugial conditions, play an important role in determining the phylogenetic structure of regional floras. The relationships between environmental conditions and phylogenetic metrics differ between continents, reflecting the different evolutionary histories of their floras.