RESUMO
BACKGROUND: The Atlantic Forest is one of the most threatened biomes in the world. Despite that, this biome still includes many areas that are poorly known floristically, including several protected areas, such as the "Floresta Nacional do Rio Preto" ("Flona do Rio Preto"), located in the Brazilian State of Espírito Santo. This study used a published vascular plant species list for this protected area from the "Catálogo de Plantas das Unidades de Conservação do Brasil" as the basis to synthesise the species richness, endemism, conservation and new species occurrences found in the "Flona do Rio Preto". NEW INFORMATION: The published list of vascular plants was based on field expeditions conducted between 2018 and 2020 and data obtained from herbarium collections available in online databases. Overall, 722 species were documented for the "Flona do Rio Preto", 711 of which are native to Brazil and 349 are endemic to the Atlantic Forest. In addition, 60 species are geographically disjunct between the Atlantic and the Amazon Forests. Most of the documented species are woody and more than 50% of these are trees. Twenty-three species are threatened (CR, EN and VU), while five are Data Deficient (DD). Thirty-two species are new records for the State of Espírito Santo. Our results expand the knowledge of the flora of the Atlantic Forest and provide support for the development of new conservation policies for this protected area.
RESUMO
PREMISE: Despite the fast pace of exploration of the patterns and processes influencing Neotropical plant hyperdiversity, the taxa explored are mostly from large groups that are widely distributed, morphologically diverse, or economically important. Vochysiaceae is an example of an undersampled taxon, providing an excellent system for investigating Neotropical biogeography. We present a phylogenomics-based hypothesis of species relationships in Vochysiaceae to investigate its evolutionary history through space and time. METHODS: We inferred a phylogeny for 122 species from Vochysiaceae and seven other families of Myrtales. Fossils from four myrtalean families were used to estimate the divergence times within Vochysiaceae. Historical biogeography was estimated using ancestral range probabilities and stochastic mapping. RESULTS: Monophyly of all genera was supported except for Qualea, which was split by Ruizterania into two clades. Vochysiaceae originated ~100 mya, splitting into an Afrotropical and a Neotropical lineage ~50 mya, and its ancestral range is in the area currently occupied by the Cerrado. CONCLUSIONS: The most recent common ancestor of Vochysiaceae + Myrtaceae had a West Gondwanan distribution, supporting a South American + African ancestral range of Vochysiaceae. On a global scale, geographic range reduction was the principal biogeographic event. At a finer scale, initial range reduction was also important and the Cerrado region was the most ancestral area with multiple colonization events to the Amazon, Central America, and the Atlantic Forest. Colonization events occurred from open areas to forest vegetation, an unusual finding regarding the evolution of plants in the Neotropics.