Phylogeny and historical biogeography of the pantropical genus Parkia (Leguminosae, Caesalpinioideae, mimosoid clade).

Parkia R.Br. (Leguminosae, Caesalpinioideae, mimosoid clade) is a pantropical genus with approximately 35 recognized species in three taxonomic sections (Parkia, Platyparkia and Sphaeroparkia), distributed widely in tropical forests and savannas in South and Central America, Africa-Madagascar and the Indo-Pacific region. In this study, phylogenetic analyses (Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian Inference), ancestral area and habitat estimations were performed using chloroplast (matK, trnL, psbA-trnH and rps16-trnQ) and nuclear (ITS/18S/26S) DNA sequences for the purpose of testing the monophyly of Parkia and inferring the geographic origin of the genus and times of divergence of the various lineages. This enabled investigation of factors that may have influenced its diversification in both hemispheres. Our results support the monophyly of the genus. A fossil-calibrated Bayesian analysis dated the Parkia crown node to the Miocene (at c. 18.85 Ma). Biogeographic analysis reconstructed an origin in the lowlands rainforests (terra firme) in Amazonia with subsequent radiation in the Neotropical region from the Miocene onwards, with dispersion events as far as Central America, and the Atlantic Forest and the cerrado of Brazil. A single dispersion from the Neotropics to the Paleotropics is hypothesised, with subsequent smaller radiations in Africa-Madagascar and the Indo-Pacific (crown ages 3.79 and 5.15 Ma respectively). Factors that may have influenced the radiation and speciation of Parkia include the elevation of the Andes (especially in the Miocene), and more recently the closing of the Panama gap in Neotropics, the climatic fluctuations of the Pleistocene influenced the diversification of species on both continents. The elevation of the Sunda Shelf in Indo-Pacific region during the last glacial maximum (LGM) appears to be the main driving force for speciation in that region. In Africa, the low number of species may be related to extinction processes.

New Guinea has the world's richest island flora.

New Guinea is the world's largest tropical island and has fascinated naturalists for centuries1,2. Home to some of the best-preserved ecosystems on the planet3 and to intact ecological gradients-from mangroves to tropical alpine grasslands-that are unmatched in the Asia-Pacific region4,5, it is a globally recognized centre of biological and cultural diversity6,7. So far, however, there has been no attempt to critically catalogue the entire vascular plant diversity of New Guinea. Here we present the first, to our knowledge, expert-verified checklist of the vascular plants of mainland New Guinea and surrounding islands. Our publicly available checklist includes 13,634 species (68% endemic), 1,742 genera and 264 families-suggesting that New Guinea is the most floristically diverse island in the world. Expert knowledge is essential for building checklists in the digital era: reliance on online taxonomic resources alone would have inflated species counts by 22%. Species discovery shows no sign of levelling off, and we discuss steps to accelerate botanical research in the 'Last Unknown'8.

Maximising Synergy among Tropical Plant Systematists, Ecologists, and Evolutionary Biologists.

Closer collaboration among ecologists, systematists, and evolutionary biologists working in tropical forests, centred on studies within long-term permanent plots, would be highly beneficial for their respective fields. With a key unifying theme of the importance of vouchered collection and precise identification of species, especially rare ones, we identify four priority areas where improving links between these communities could achieve significant progress in biodiversity and conservation science: (i) increasing the pace of species discovery; (ii) documenting species turnover across space and time; (iii) improving models of ecosystem change; and (iv) understanding the evolutionary assembly of communities and biomes.