Biogeography of Palms

Palms are among the most charismatic and recognisable plants in the world. With >2400 species worldwide, the palms (family Arecaceae or Palmae) are a characteristic element of all tropical and subtropical regions and among the oldest monocotyledonous flowering plants in the world (estimated to have originated in the Early Cretaceous ca. 110-120 Mya). The palm family exhibits an amazing, but poorly understood, variation in species richness, life forms and clade composition and is thus ideally suited as a model system to better understand the broad-scale distribution of tropical biodiversity. Using a quantitative computational approach to ecology, I integrate knowledge on species distributions, phylogenetic information, trait variation, and environmental data layers to elucidate the broad-scale determinants of species diversity and trait variation in this iconic plant group. I am further interested in testing specific hypotheses about the geographic mosaic of plant-animal interactions and the biogeographic importance of palms as a keystone resource for frugivorous consumers in tropical ecosystems.

Keywords: Arecaceae, biogeography, co-evolution, community assembly, macroecology, plant-animal interactions.

Select publications:

• Eiserhardt, W.L., Svenning, J.-C., Kissling, W.D. & Balslev, H. (2011): Geographical ecology of the palms (Arecaceae) -- determinants of diversity and distributions across spatial scales. Annals of Botany, in press.

Figure: Palms are one of the most distinctive groups of land plants and characteristic elements of all tropical and subtropical regions. The photo shows a stand of Aphandra natalia, an ivory palm growing in lowland and premontane rain forests of Ecuador, Peru and northern Brazil (photo credit: Mikkel B. Sørensen).

 

W. Daniel Kissling