Science Enabled by Specimen Data
Li, M., J. He, Z. Zhao, R. Lyu, M. Yao, J. Cheng, and L. Xie. 2020. Predictive modelling of the distribution of Clematis sect. Fruticella s. str. under climate change reveals a range expansion during the Last Glacial Maximum. PeerJ 8: e8729. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8729
Background The knowledge of distributional dynamics of living organisms is a prerequisite for protecting biodiversity and for the sustainable use of biotic resources. Clematis sect. Fruticella s. str. is a small group of shrubby, yellow-flowered species distributed mainly in arid and semi-arid areas…
Ringelberg, J. J., N. E. Zimmermann, A. Weeks, M. Lavin, and C. E. Hughes. 2020. Biomes as evolutionary arenas: Convergence and conservatism in the trans‐continental succulent biome A. Moles [ed.],. Global Ecology and Biogeography 29: 1100–1113. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13089
Aim: Historically, biomes have been defined based on their structurally and functionally similar vegetation, but there is debate about whether these similarities are superficial, and about how biomes are defined and mapped. We propose that combined assessment of evolutionary convergence of plant fun…
Howard, C. C., and N. Cellinese. 2020. Tunicate bulb size variation in monocots explained by temperature and phenology. Ecology and Evolution 10: 2299–2309. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5996
Plant bulbs are modified shoot systems comprised of short internodes with apical bud(s) surrounded by layers of leaf bases. Bulb diameters can vary greatly, with overall bulb size playing a role in flower formation and resource allocation. Despite the importance of bulb size to the overall fitness o…
Léveillé-Bourret, É., B.-H. Chen, M.-È. Garon-Labrecque, B. A. Ford, and J. R. Starr. 2020. RAD sequencing resolves the phylogeny, taxonomy and biogeography of Trichophoreae despite a recent rapid radiation (Cyperaceae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 145: 106727. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2019.106727
Trichophoreae is a nearly cosmopolitan Cyperaceae tribe that contains ∼17 species displaying striking variation in size, inflorescence complexity, and perianth morphology. Although morphologically distinct, the status of its three genera (Cypringlea, Oreobolopsis and Trichophorum) are controversial …
Pirie, M. D., M. Kandziora, N. M. Nürk, N. C. Le Maitre, A. Mugrabi de Kuppler, B. Gehrke, E. G. H. Oliver, and D. U. Bellstedt. 2019. Leaps and bounds: geographical and ecological distance constrained the colonisation of the Afrotemperate by Erica. BMC Evolutionary Biology 19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1545-6
Background: The coincidence of long distance dispersal (LDD) and biome shift is assumed to be the result of a multifaceted interplay between geographical distance and ecological suitability of source and sink areas. Here, we test the influence of these factors on the dispersal history of the floweri…
Acuña Castillo, R., F. Luebert, T. Henning, and M. Weigend. 2019. Major lineages of Loasaceae subfam. Loasoideae diversified during the Andean uplift. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 141: 106616. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2019.106616
The Loasoideae is the largest clade in the Loasaceae. This subfamily is widespread throughout the Neotropics and centered in the Andes, presenting an excellent opportunity to study diversification across much of temperate and mid to high-elevation areas of South America. Despite that, no studies hav…
Nevado, B., E. L. Y. Wong, O. G. Osborne, and D. A. Filatov. 2019. Adaptive Evolution Is Common in Rapid Evolutionary Radiations. Current Biology 29: 3081-3086.e5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2019.07.059
One of the most long-standing and important mysteries in evolutionary biology is why biological diversity is so unevenly distributed across space and taxonomic lineages. Nowhere is this disparity more evident than in the multitude of rapid evolutionary radiations found on oceanic islands and mountai…
LU, M., L. CHEN, J. WANG, R. LIU, Y. YANG, M. WEI, and G. DONG. 2019. A brief history of wheat utilization in China. Frontiers of Agricultural Science and Engineering 6: 288. https://doi.org/10.15302/j-fase-2019266
Wheat is one of the most important crops in both China and the world, and its domestication can be traced back to ~10000 years ago. However, the history of its origin and utilization in China remains highly ambiguous. Drawing upon the most recent results of taxonomic, genetic, archeological and text…
Fletcher, T. L., L. Warden, J. S. Sinninghe Damsté, K. J. Brown, N. Rybczynski, J. C. Gosse, and A. P. Ballantyne. 2019. Evidence for fire in the Pliocene Arctic in response to amplified temperature. Climate of the Past 15: 1063–1081. https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-15-1063-2019
The mid-Pliocene is a valuable time interval for investigating equilibrium climate at current atmospheric CO2 concentrations because atmospheric CO2 concentrations are thought to have been comparable to the current day and yet the climate and distribution of ecosystems were quite different. One intr…
Folk, R. A., R. L. Stubbs, M. E. Mort, N. Cellinese, J. M. Allen, P. S. Soltis, D. E. Soltis, and R. P. Guralnick. 2019. Rates of niche and phenotype evolution lag behind diversification in a temperate radiation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116: 10874–10882. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1817999116
Environmental change can create opportunities for increased rates of lineage diversification, but continued species accumulation has been hypothesized to lead to slowdowns via competitive exclusion and niche partitioning. Such density-dependent models imply tight linkages between diversification and…