DOI: 10.5061/dryad.709t8
title: Data from: Historical reconstruction of climatic and elevation preferences and the evolution of cloud forest-adapted tree ferns in Mesoamerica

description: Background. Cloud forest, characterized by a persistent, frequent or
 seasonal low-level cloud cover and a fragmented distribution, is one of
 the most threatened habitats especially in the Neotropics. Tree ferns are
 among the most conspicuous elements in these forests and ferns are
 restricted to regions in which minimum temperatures rarely drop below
 freezing and rainfall is high and evenly distributed around the year.
 Current phylogeographic data suggest that some of the cloud forest-adapted
 species remained in situ or expanded to the lowlands during glacial cycles
 and contracted allopatrically during the interglacials. Although the
 observed genetic signals of population size changes of cloud
 forest-adapted species including tree ferns correspond to predicted
 changes by Pleistocene climate change dynamics, the observed patterns of
 intraspecific lineage divergence showed temporal incongruence. Methods.
 Here we combined phylogenetic analyses, ancestral area reconstruction, and
 divergence time estimates with climatic and altitudinal data
 (environmental space) for phenotypic traits of tree fern species to make
 inferences about evolutionary processes in deep time. We used phylogenetic
 Bayesian inference and geographic and altitudinal distribution of tree
 ferns to investigate the ancestral area and elevation and environmental
 preferences of Mesoamerican tree ferns. The phylogeny was then used to
 estimate divergence times and ask whether the ancestral area and elevation
 and environmental shifts were linked to climatic events and historical
 climatic preferences. Results. Bayesian trees retrieved Cyathea,
 Alsophila, Gymnosphaera and Sphaeropteris in monophyletic clades. Splits
 for species in these genera found in the Mesoamerican cloud forests are
 recent, from the Neogene to the Quaternary. Australia was identified as
 the ancestral area for the clades of these genera, except for Gymnosphaera
 that was Mesoamerica. Climate tolerance was not divergent from
 hypothesized ancestors for the four most significant variables or
 elevation. For elevational shifts we found repeated changes from low to
 high elevations. Conclusions. Our data suggest that representatives of
 Cyatheaceae main lineages migrated from Australia to Mesoamerican cloud
 forests in different times and have persisted in these environmentally
 unstable areas but extant species diverged recently from their ancestors.
description: Bioclimatic
 variablesThis file includes
 values for every climate variable from WorldClim for every species (for
 variable definitions see: http://www.worldclim.org/bioclim). Further
 information about WorldClim in Hijmans, R.J., S.E. Cameron, J.L. Parra,
 P.G. Jones and A. Jarvis, 2005. Very high resolution interpolated climate
 surfaces for global land areas. International Journal of Climatology 25:
 1965-1978. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/joc.1276Bios.xlsxMean climate variables and elevationThe file includes mean climate variables from WorldClim and mean elevation for every species.Bios&Alt_meanVals.xlsxDataMatrixTreeFernsMolecular data matrix comprising all taxa of tree ferns used in phylogenetic analyses.Trees retrieved by Maximum Likelihood analysesThis file includes the phylogenetic trees retrieved by Maximum Likelihood analyses.TreeFerns_MAX.treesTreeFernsBeast