Biomes are everybody's kingdom: a platform where ecology and biogeography meet

A global phylogenetic regionalization of vascular plants reveals a deep split between Gondwanan and Laurasian biotas

Existing global regionalization schemes for plants consider the compositional affinities among biotas, but these have not explicitly considered phylogenetic information. Here, we present for the first time, a phytogeographical delineation of the global vascular flora based on species-level evolutionary relationships. We analysed 8737 820 geographical occurrence records for vascular plants together with a time-calibrated phylogeny including 67 269 species. We constructed a global phylogenetic regionalization by estimating species composition and phylogenetic beta diversity among 200 km × 200 km grid cells across the world. We identified de novo 16 phytogeographical units that are deeply split into two clusters: Laurasian and Gondwanan. Our regionalization broadly matches previous schemes, but also highlights the separation of the Gondwanan biota into an Holotropical cluster and an Australian-Neozealandic-Patagonian cluster. In contrast, no clear split among Laurasian and Gondwanan biotas was retrieved when omitting phylogenetic information. The integration of phylogenetic and geographical information provides new insights into the delineation of phytogeographical areas and their historical relationships, enabling the identification of three large, clearly differentiated biotas, here referred to as kingdoms: Holarctic, Holotropical, and Austral. Our results provide further evidence for delineating transition zones and show a clear latitudinal pattern of increasing evolutionary distinctiveness towards the poles.

Defining Biologically Meaningful Biomes Through Floristic, Functional, and Phylogenetic Data

While we have largely improved our understanding on what biomes are and their utility in global change ecology, conservation planning, and evolutionary biology is clear, there is no consensus on how biomes should be delimited or mapped. Existing methods emphasize different aspects of biomes, with different strengths and limitations. We introduce a novel approach to biome delimitation and mapping, based upon combining individual regionalizations derived from floristic, functional, and phylogenetic data linked to environmentally trained species distribution models. We define “core Biomes” as areas where independent regionalizations agree and “transition zones” as those whose biome identity is not corroborated by all analyses. We apply this approach to delimiting the neglected Caatinga seasonally dry tropical forest biome in northeast Brazil. We delimit the “core Caatinga” as a smaller and more climatically limited area than previous definitions, and argue it represents a floristically, functionally, and phylogenetically coherent unit within the driest parts of northeast Brazil. “Caatinga transition zones” represent a large and biologically important area, highlighting that ecological and evolutionary processes work across environmental gradients and that biomes are not categorical variables. We discuss the differences among individual regionalizations in an ecological and evolutionary context and the potential limitations and utility of individual and combined biome delimitations. Our integrated ecological and evolutionary definition of the Caatinga and associated transition zones are argued to best describe and map biologically meaningful biomes.