Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Biological Sciences
Document Type
Dissertation
Abstract
Biodiversity on Earth is unevenly distributed, where mountains sustain most plant and animal life. The fauna and flora in these regions comprise a combination of ancient lineages and recently diverged species, with specific mountains having different amounts of each. With a high concentration of vascular plants in a small area, the Tropical Andes is the most biodiverse region globally. Similarly, its flora is the most species- rich, with about half of the species restricted to these mountains. The origin of this plant community has several components of in situ evolutionary radiations, which also happen to be recent. With the advance of high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies, and computational tools to process large data sets, it opens a new avenue to understanding the origin of this rich flora. By integrating molecular, phenotypic and distributional data with model-based inference, this dissertation aims to understand what has driven the geographically uneven, rapid and recent radiation of plants—particularly at higher elevations. I used the genus Brachyotum, whose 55 species only occur along the Tropical Andes, and are distinguished by their tubular-shaped flowers that produce nectar. In addition, I compared patterns of conflicting evolutionary histories across different plant taxa in the Tropical Andes along an elevational gradient. This study heavily relied on fieldwork, scientific collections, publicly available data, and collaborations to investigate the origin of species in the core of the Neotropics.
Date
10-30-2025
Recommended Citation
Paredes Burneo, Diego Franco, "Macroevolutionary Insights into Plant Radiations in the Tropical Andes from the High-Elevation Genus Brachyotum" (2025). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 6913.
https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/6913
Committee Chair
Lagomarsino, Laura P.