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Tectonics, climate and the diversification of the tropical African terrestrial flora and fauna

dc.contributor.authorCouvreur, T.L.
dc.contributor.authorDauby, G.
dc.contributor.authorBlach-Overgaard, A.
dc.contributor.authorDeblauwe, V.
dc.contributor.authorDessein, S.
dc.contributor.authorDroissart, V.
dc.contributor.authorHardy, O.J.
dc.contributor.authorHarris, D.J.
dc.contributor.authorJanssens, S.
dc.contributor.authorLey, A.C.
dc.contributor.authorMackinder, B.A.
dc.contributor.authorSonke, B.
dc.contributor.authorSosef, M.S.
dc.contributor.authorStevart, T.
dc.contributor.authorSvenning, J.C.
dc.contributor.authorWieringa, J.J.
dc.contributor.authorFaye, A.
dc.contributor.authorMissoup, A.D.
dc.contributor.authorTolley, K.A.
dc.contributor.authorNicolas, V.
dc.contributor.authorNtie, S.
dc.contributor.authorFluteau, F.
dc.contributor.authorRobin, C.
dc.contributor.authorGuillocheau, F.
dc.contributor.authorBarboni, D.
dc.contributor.authorSepulchre, P.
dc.date.accessioned2022-01-07T10:37:59Z
dc.date.available2022-01-07T10:37:59Z
dc.date.issued2021
dc.identifier.citationCouvreur, T.L., Dauby, G., Blach‐Overgaard, A., Deblauwe, V., Dessein, S., Droissart, V., ... & Sepulchre, P. (2021). Tectonics, climate and the diversification of the tropical African terrestrial flora and fauna. Biological Reviews, 96(1), 16-51.
dc.identifier.issn1464-7931
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12478/7305
dc.description.abstractTropical Africa is home to an astonishing biodiversity occurring in a variety of ecosystems. Past climatic change and geological events have impacted the evolution and diversification of this biodiversity. During the last two decades, around 90 dated molecular phylogenies of different clades across animals and plants have been published leading to an increased understanding of the diversification and speciation processes generating tropical African biodiversity. In parallel, extended geological and palaeoclimatic records together with detailed numerical simulations have refined our understanding of past geological and climatic changes in Africa. To date, these important advances have not been reviewed within a common framework. Here, we critically review and synthesize African climate, tectonics and terrestrial biodiversity evolution throughout the Cenozoic to the mid-Pleistocene, drawing on recent advances in Earth and life sciences. We first review six major geo-climatic periods defining tropical African biodiversity diversification by synthesizing 89 dated molecular phylogeny studies. Two major geo-climatic factors impacting the diversification of the sub-Saharan biota are highlighted. First, Africa underwent numerous climatic fluctuations at ancient and more recent timescales, with tectonic, greenhouse gas, and orbital forcing stimulating diversification. Second, increased aridification since the Late Eocene led to important extinction events, but also provided unique diversification opportunities shaping the current tropical African biodiversity landscape. We then review diversification studies of tropical terrestrial animal and plant clades and discuss three major models of speciation: (i) geographic speciation via vicariance (allopatry); (ii) ecological speciation impacted by climate and geological changes, and (iii) genomic speciation via genome duplication. Geographic speciation has been the most widely documented to date and is a common speciation model across tropical Africa. We conclude with four important challenges faced by tropical African biodiversity research: (i) to increase knowledge by gathering basic and fundamental biodiversity information; (ii) to improve modelling of African geophysical evolution throughout the Cenozoic via better constraints and downscaling approaches; (iii) to increase the precision of phylogenetic reconstruction and molecular dating of tropical African clades by using next generation sequencing approaches together with better fossil calibrations; (iv) finally, as done here, to integrate data better from Earth and life sciences by focusing on the interdisciplinary study of the evolution of tropical African biodiversity in a wider geodiversity context.
dc.description.sponsorshipFrench Foundation for Research on Biodiversity
dc.description.sponsorshipThe Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
dc.format.extent16-51
dc.language.isoen
dc.subjectBiodiversity
dc.subjectClimate Change
dc.subjectDiversification
dc.subjectSubsaharan Africa
dc.subjectFlora
dc.subjectFauna
dc.subjectTropical Africa,
dc.subjectFossils
dc.subjectPalaeoclimate
dc.titleTectonics, climate and the diversification of the tropical African terrestrial flora and fauna
dc.typeJournal Article
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversité de Montpellier
cg.contributor.affiliationAarhus University
cg.contributor.affiliationInternational Institute of Tropical Agriculture
cg.contributor.affiliationMeise Botanic Garden, Belgium
cg.contributor.affiliationuniversite Libre de Bruxelles
cg.contributor.affiliationRoyal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversity Halle-Wittenberg
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversité de Yaoundé I
cg.contributor.affiliationNaturalis Biodiversity Center, The Netherlands
cg.contributor.affiliationInstitut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversity of Douala
cg.contributor.affiliationSouth African National Biodiversity Institute
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversité des Antilles
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversité des Sciences et Techniques de Masuku, France
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversité de Paris
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversity of Rennes
cg.contributor.affiliationAix-Marseille University
cg.contributor.affiliationUniversité Paris-Saclay
cg.coverage.regionAfrica
cg.coverage.hubCentral Africa Hub
cg.researchthemeNatural Resource Management
cg.identifier.bibtexciteidCOUVREUR: 2021
cg.isijournalISI Journal
cg.authorship.typesCGIAR and developing country institute
cg.iitasubjectBiodiversity
cg.iitasubjectClimate Change
cg.journalBiological Reviews
cg.notesOpen Access Article; Published online: 13 Sep 2020
cg.accessibilitystatusOpen Access
cg.reviewstatusPeer Review
cg.usagerightslicenseCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 0.0)
cg.targetaudienceScientists
cg.identifier.doihttps://dx.doi.org/10.1111/brv.12644
cg.iitaauthor.identifierVincent Deblauwe: 0000-0001-9881-1052
cg.futureupdate.requiredNo
cg.identifier.issue1
cg.identifier.volume96
cg.contributor.acknowledgementsThis synthesis stems from several meetings within the RAINBIO project funded by the French Foundation for Research on Biodiversity (FRB) and the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (PACA) region through the Centre for Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity data (CESAB) program. J.-C.S. considers this work a contribution to his VILLUM Investigator project “Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing World” funded by VILLUM FONDEN (grant 16549). T.L.P.C. was supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche ANR (AFRODYN project; ANR-15- CE02-0002-01). The map in Fig. 1B was created using NOAA Ferret software (https://ferretop.pmel.noaa.gov/Ferret/), embedded in iPython notebooks (https://ipython.org/notebook.html) using the ferretmagic package (https://github.com/PBrockmann/ipython_ferretmagic) developed at LSCE; maps in Fig. 2 were compiled by F.G. and C.R. within the framework of ANR project TopoAfrica (ANR-08-BLAN-0247). Finally, we are grateful to three anonymous reviewers and Simon Loader for providing important comments that improved the quality of this review, and Alison Cooper for carefully reading the final version of this manuscript.


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