2024/08/13 by Yu-Shuang Wang, Enze Li, Jiahui Sun +2 · 1 voice · 2 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Environmental Science · #Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies #Genetic diversity and population structure #Plant Diversity and Evolution
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/jse.13117
openalex publication_date 2024/08/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Abstract Speciation events often occur with adaptive radiation. The factors that promote these adaptive radiating species diversity patterns have intrigued biologists for more than a century. In the present study, we used the adaptive radiated genus Ligustrum to evaluate the relative contributions of the environment, species interactions, phylogenetic diversity, and diversification rates in generating extant species diversity patterns. Using complete chloroplast genome data, we reconstructed the highly supported and dated backbone phylogenetic relationships of Ligustrum . Biogeographic results indicated that Ligustrum originated in Southwest China during the Oligocene and spread to suitable areas that were warm and humid via 18 dispersal events. For the overlapping ranges of species pairs, a smaller phylogenetic distance was detected in high species overlap than in low species overlap, which is consistent with no significant difference in niche among the different species. We found that the phylogenetic diversity and interspecies competition induced by insignificant niche divergence shaped the global pattern of Ligustrum diversity.