Southeast Asian Dipterocarp origin and diversification driven by Africa-India floristic interchange

Bansal, Mahi; Morley, Robert J.; Nagaraju, Shivaprakash K.; Dutta, Suryendu; Mishra, Ashish Kumar; Selveraj, Jeyakumar; Kumar, Sumit; Niyolia, D.; Harish, Sachin Medigeshi; Abdelrahim, Omer Babiker; Hasan, Shaa Eldin; Ramesh, B.R.; Dayanandan, Selvadurai; Morley, Harsanti P.; Ashton, Peter S.; Prasad, Vandana

doi:10.1126/science.abk2177

Cited by 50 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…110–50 Ma). The primary evidence for the presence of the family in India and Africa during that interval is palynological ( Morley, 2018 ; Prasad et al, 2018 ; Ashton et al, 2021 ; Bansal et al, 2022 ; Mishra et al, 2022 ) and quite compelling, appearing to eliminate the rival idea of Asian dipterocarp origins ( e.g ., Shukla, Mehrotra & Guleria, 2013 ; Srivastava et al, 2014 ). However, nearly all potentially supporting macrofossil and geochemical evidence has been contested ( Shukla, Mehrotra & Guleria, 2013 ; Kooyman et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

First fossil-leaf floras from Brunei Darussalam show dipterocarp dominance in Borneo by the Pliocene

Wilf

Zou

Donovan

et al. 2022

PeerJ

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The Malay Archipelago is one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, but it suffers high extinction risks due to severe anthropogenic pressures. Paleobotanical knowledge provides baselines for the conservation of living analogs and improved understanding of vegetation, biogeography, and paleoenvironments through time. The Malesian bioregion is well studied palynologically, but there have been very few investigations of Cenozoic paleobotany (plant macrofossils) in a century or more. We report the first paleobotanical survey of Brunei Darussalam, a sultanate on the north coast of Borneo that still preserves the majority of its extraordinarily diverse, old-growth tropical rainforests. We discovered abundant compression floras dominated by angiosperm leaves at two sites of probable Pliocene age: Berakas Beach, in the Liang Formation, and Kampong Lugu, in an undescribed stratigraphic unit. Both sites also yielded rich palynofloral assemblages from the macrofossil-bearing beds, indicating lowland fern-dominated swamp (Berakas Beach) and mangrove swamp (Kampong Lugu) depositional environments. Fern spores from at least nine families dominate both palynological assemblages, along with abundant fungal and freshwater algal remains, rare marine microplankton, at least four mangrove genera, and a diverse rainforest tree and liana contribution (at least 19 families) with scarce pollen of Dipterocarpaceae, today’s dominant regional life form. Compressed leaves and rare reproductive material represent influx to the depocenters from the adjacent coastal rainforests. Although only about 40% of specimens preserve informative details, we can distinguish 23 leaf and two reproductive morphotypes among the two sites. Dipterocarps are by far the most abundant group in both compression assemblages, providing rare, localized evidence for dipterocarp-dominated lowland rainforests in the Malay Archipelago before the Pleistocene. The dipterocarp fossils include winged Shorea fruits, at least two species of plicate Dipterocarpus leaves, and very common Dryobalanops leaves. We attribute additional leaf taxa to Rhamnaceae (Ziziphus), Melastomataceae, and Araceae (Rhaphidophora), all rare or new fossil records for the region. The dipterocarp leaf dominance contrasts sharply with the family’s <1% representation in the palynofloras from the same strata. This result directly demonstrates that dipterocarp pollen is prone to strong taphonomic filtering and underscores the importance of macrofossils for quantifying the timing of the dipterocarps’ rise to dominance in the region. Our work shows that complex coastal rainforests dominated by dipterocarps, adjacent to swamps and mangroves and otherwise similar to modern ecosystems, have existed in Borneo for at least 4–5 million years. Our findings add historical impetus for the conservation of these gravely imperiled and extremely biodiverse ecosystems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

First fossil-leaf floras from Brunei Darussalam show dipterocarp dominance in Borneo by the Pliocene

Wilf

Zou

Donovan

et al. 2022

PeerJ

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“…Nevertheless, Monotes in Madagascar could have diverged after the two plates separated via an ancestor traversing the Mozambique Channel < 115 Ma (Figure 5), or by basal Monotes (or their MRCA) spreading into Madagascar prior to the separation ≥ 115 Ma (Figures 3, 4). Bansal et al (2022)…”

Section: Monotes Spread From Africa To Madagascar Before They Separat...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fossil pollen of Sarcolaenaceae has since been recorded much earlier in northeast Africa from 97 Ma, as several tetrad types (Cole et al 2017;Morley, 2018), and also India at 78-68.5 Ma (Prasad et al 2018, Ashton et al 2021 and cannot be ignored when examining the phylogenetics of this superclade. Bansal et al (2022) omitted this family from their analysis so that Madagascar was (unfortunately) excluded from any possible role in the migratory history of the Dipterocarpaceae.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A key paper is Bansal et al (2022) that gives the crown of the Monotoideae-Dipterocarpoideae at 102.9 Ma, the Monotoideae at 72.1 Ma, and the Dipterocarpoideae at 94.6 Ma. Even using the oldest 95% HPD age for the most-recent common ancestors, Trillesanthus (syn.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Marquesia, endemic to Africa) and Pseudomonotes (endemic to South America) of 85 Ma, this would require transAtlantic-Ocean migration in one direction or the other. Bansal et al (2022) used highly restrictive assumptions in their analysis as follows: 1) constrained the age of Dipterocarpaceae to a maximum of 110 Ma; 2) pre-assigned Africa as the continent of origin, as the oldest fossil found so far (P. phosphaticus noted above) is from there; 3) rejected an Indian origin as it was too far south and consequently the climate too dry for the Dipterocarpaceae as currently distributed; 4) opted for 80-70 Ma as the time of migration to India as by then the climate in greater India and North Africa were considered both perhumid; 5) rejected Madagascar as having any role in the biogeography of Dipterocarpaceae by a) merging it with Africa and b) ignoring Sarcolaenaceae, currently endemic there; and 6) omitted from the analysis other sister clades with a non-African affinity, especially Pakaraimaea in South America and Sphaerosepalaceae in Madagascar (Heckenhauser et al 2017, Hernández-Gutiérrez et al 2019. From their chronogram we see that 8−9 lineages of the Dipterocarpoideae would have had to migrate ~2,000 km of ocean to reach India 75 Ma (that had now moved east, not yet north, of Madagascar), including two genera whose seeds are wingless.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Gondwanan origin of the Dipterocarpaceae-Cistaceae-Bixaceae is supported by fossils, areocladograms, ecomorphological traits and tectonic-plate dynamics

Lamont¹,

Thornhill²,

Korczynskyj³

2022

Frontiers of Biogeography

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Highlights• It was proposed 40 years ago that the iconic Dipterocarps of Asia had a Gondwanan origin.• Yet current phylogenies place the origin of the Dipterocarpaceae and associated lineages at 100−85 million years ago, when all but a few Gondwanan plates had long since separated.• We created a molecular phylogeny for the superclade, Dipterocarpaceae-Sarcolaenaceae-Cistaceae-Pakaraimaea-Sphaerosepalaceae-Bixaceae-Cochlospermaceae, submitted it to areogram analysis, and then related this to when the major Gondwanan plates separated, with further support from fossil-morphological-ecological data and historic global circulation patterns.• We show that South America, Africa and Madagascar-India must have still been fused at the time this superclade arose and its three lineages must have arisen in various parts of NorthWest Gondwana (well) over 115 million years ago.• We conclude that all Dipterocarp-related clades had an African or South American origin with the Asian Dipterocarps originating in India overland via Africa and Madagascar.• Our results add to the growing body of evidence that Gondwana has been a major cradle for many floweringplant clades now spread throughout the globe and point to a much earlier origin for Angiosperms than is generally accepted, since the Dipterocarpaceae (Malvales) is not even considered a basal clade.

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PaleogeneFicusleaves from India and their implications for fig evolution and diversification

Chandra

Spicer

Shukla³

et al. 2023

American J of Botany

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Premise Ficus is a scientifically and economically important genus with abundant fossil records from the Paleocene to Pleistocene, but with an intriguing early evolutionary history that remains unresolved. Here, the foliage of three well‐preserved figs is described from the early Paleogene succession of the Gurha mine, Rajasthan, India. These fossils provide new morphological data that strengthens our understanding of the past occurrences of Ficus and, alongside all validly published records of fossil figs, helps to trace the evolutionary history of figs. Methods Fossils were identified and described by comparison with their closest modern analogs using the Nearest Living Relative (NLR) technique. Validated fig records are listed and categorized into six geological time frames. Modern precipitation data for the current distributions of NLRs were downloaded from the Climatic Research Unit Timeseries. Results Fossil leaves assigned to three new species Ficus paleodicranostyla, F. paleovariegata, and F. paleoauriculata closely resemble their modern analogs based on leaf morphology. Reliable fossil records were used to hypothesize historical fig distributions and paleodispersal pathways. Precipitation data suggest higher precipitations at the fossil locality during the early Paleogene than at present. Conclusions The fossils described herein supplement fig fossil records known from other regions indicating that figs were widely diverse across low latitudes by the early Paleogene. These data support a Eurasian origin for figs, highlight a pivotal role for the Indian subcontinent during the early phase of fig diversification, and depict a perhumid‐to‐humid climate with high rainfall concordant with paleoclimate evidence from the Gurha mine.

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Southeast Asian Dipterocarp origin and diversification driven by Africa-India floristic interchange

Cited by 50 publications

References 52 publications

First fossil-leaf floras from Brunei Darussalam show dipterocarp dominance in Borneo by the Pliocene

First fossil-leaf floras from Brunei Darussalam show dipterocarp dominance in Borneo by the Pliocene

Gondwanan origin of the Dipterocarpaceae-Cistaceae-Bixaceae is supported by fossils, areocladograms, ecomorphological traits and tectonic-plate dynamics

PaleogeneFicusleaves from India and their implications for fig evolution and diversification

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