Evolutionary history of African rain forests: insights from species and within-species diversity patterns

Gilles Dauby (UMR DIADE, ©quipe Dynadiv, gilles.dauby@ird.fr)

African rain forests contain high levels of species richness and endemism. Climate change has deeply influenced the evolutionary dynamics of these forests impacting diversity in terms of their biogeography and diversification history as well as their present day distribution and genetic/species diversities. In a first part, I shall present an overview of evidences and hypothesis concerning the impacts of past climate changes on the diversity of African rainforests. I will briefly review three different approaches used for inferring their impact: (i) paleobotanical evidences (e.g. fossil pollen); (ii) patterns of present-day species diversity and endemism and (iii) comparative phylogeography. The latter approach will be illustrated with results obtained using sixteen species of central African trees, herbs and lianas. In a second part, I will present the current project I am working on whose first goal was to produce a mega-database of sub-Saharan vascular plant occurrences. Basic statistics and geographical pattern of this unique database representing over half a million occurrences will be shortly presented. Finally, I will present preliminary results on how species distribution modelling tools can provide insight into the determinants of plant species distribution in Africa.