Precipitation is the main axis of tropical phylogenetic turnover across space and time

Abstract

Early natural historians – Compte de Buffon, von Humboldt and De Candolle – established ecology and geography as two principal axes determining the distribution of groups of organisms, laying the foundations for biogeography over the subsequent 200 years, yet the relative importance of these two axes remains unresolved. Leveraging phylogenomic and global species distribution data for Mimosoid legumes, an pantropical plant clade of 3,400 species, we show that the water availability gradient from deserts to rainforests dictates turnover of lineages within continents across the tropics. We demonstrate that 95% of speciation occurs within a precipitation niche, showing profound phylogenetic niche conservatism, and that lineage turnover boundaries coincide with isohyets of precipitation. We reveal similar patterns on different continents, implying that evolution and dispersal follow universal processes.