Andrea Sanchez Meseguer

French National Centre for Scientific Research | CNRS · ISEM

In disciplines such as macroevolution that are not amenable to experimentation, scientists usually rely on current observations to test hypotheses about historical events, assuming that "the present is the key to the past". Biogeographers, for example, used this assumption to reconstruct ancestral ranges from the present distribution of extant spec...

Meseguer, A.S. & Sanmartín, I. 2012. Paleobiology of the genus Hyperi -cum (Hypericaceae): a survey of the fossil record and its palaeogeo-graphic implications. Anales Jard. Bot. Madrid 69(1): 97-106 Genus Hypericum is one of the 100 largest genera in angiosperms with nearly 500 species. Despite its worldwide, nearly cosmopolitan distribu-tion and...

The Amazonian rainforest is arguably the most species-rich terrestrial ecosystem in the world, yet the timing of the origin and evolutionary causes of this diversity are a matter of debate. We review the geologic and phylogenetic evidence from Amazonia and compare it with uplift records from the Andes. This uplift and its effect on regional climate...

The origins and evolution of the outstanding Neotropical biodiversity are a matter of intense debate. A comprehensive understanding is hindered by the lack of deep-time comparative data across wide phylogenetic and ecological contexts. Here, we quantify the prevailing diversification trajectories and drivers of Neotropical diversification in a samp...

Angiosperm lineages in aquatic environments are characterized by high structural and functional diversity, and wide distributions. A long‐standing evolutionary riddle is what processes cause the relatively low diversity of aquatic angiosperms compared to their terrestrial relatives. We use diversification and ancestral reconstruction models with a...

The Andes are the world's most biodiverse mountain chain, encompassing a complex array of ecosystems from tropical rainforests to alpine habitats. We provide a synthesis of Andean vascular plant diversity by estimating a list of all species with publicly available records, which we integrate with a phylogenetic dataset of 14 501 Neotropical plant s...

The origin of the outstanding Neotropical biodiversity is still debated. A comprehensive understanding is hindered by the lack of deep-time comparative data across wide phylogenetic and ecological contexts. Here we define and evaluate four evolutionary scenarios assuming different diversity trajectories and drivers of Neotropical diversification. R...

Aim The Neotropics currently host outstanding levels of species richness, with one‐third of the global tetrapod species. The underlying causes of these extraordinary levels of biodiversity are a topic debated in evolutionary ecology, but the main processes at work remain elusive. Location Neotropics. Time period Cenozoic and Mesozoic. Major taxa...

Global biodiversity currently peaks at the equator and decreases toward the poles. Growing fossil evidence suggest this hump‐shaped latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) has not been persistent through time, with similar diversity across latitudes flattening out the LDG during past greenhouse periods. However, when and how diversity declined at high...

Extremely high levels of plant diversity in the American tropics are derived from multiple interactions between biotic and abiotic factors. Previous studies have focused on macro-evolutionary dynamics of the Tropical Andes, Amazonia, and Brazil’s Cerrado and Atlantic forests during the last decade. Yet, other equally important Neotropical biodivers...

Abstract Climate adaptation has major consequences in the evolution and ecology of all living organisms. Though phytophagous insects are an important component of Earth's biodiversity, there are few studies investigating the evolution of their climatic preferences. This lack of research is probably because their evolutionary ecology is thought to b...

The bark beetle genus Dendroctonus contains some of the most economically important pests of conifers worldwide. Despite many attempts, there is no agreement today on the phylogenetic relationships within the genus, which limits our understanding of its evolutionary history. Here, using restriction-site associated DNA (RAD) markers from 70 specimen...

Aim Frost is among the most dramatic stresses a plant can experience, and complex physiological adaptations are needed to endure long periods of sub‐zero temperatures. Owing to the need to evolve these complex adaptations, transitioning from tropical to temperate climates is regarded as difficult. Here, we study the transition from tropical to temp...

Brazil, home to one of the planet’s last great forests, is currently in trade negotiations with its second largest trading partner, the European Union (EU). We urge the EU to seize this critical opportunity to ensure that Brazil protects human rights and the environment. Brazil’s forests, wetlands, and savannas are crucial to a great diversity of I...

Biodiversity currently peaks at the equator, decreasing toward the poles. Growing fossil evidence suggest that this hump-shaped latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) has not been persistent through time, with similar species diversity across latitudes flattening out the LDG during past greenhouse periods. This provides a new starting point for LDG r...

Genes showing versatile functions or subjected to fast expansion and contraction during the adaptation of species to specific ecological conditions, like sensory receptors for odors, pheromones and tastes, are characterized by a great plasticity through evolution. One of the most fascinating sensory receptors in the family of TRP channels, the cold...

Aim: Frost is among the most dramatic stresses a plant can experience and complex physiological adaptations are needed to endure long periods of sub-zero temperatures. Due to the need for evolving these complex adaptations, transitioning from tropical to temperate climates is regarded difficult and only half of the world's seed plant families have...

Aim During its entire history, the Earth has gone through periods of climate change similar in scale and pace to the warming trend observed today in the Anthropocene. The impact of these ancient climatic events on the evolutionary trajectories of organisms provides clues on the organismal response to climate change, including extinction, migration...

Phylogenetic studies of globally distributed taxa are crucial to estimate the mode and tempo of common intercontinental biogeographic processes. However, few of these studies have focused on invertebrates, mainly because their taxonomy and species richness generally are highly neglected. Here we performed a morphological and mtDNA sequence-based sp...

Phylogenetic studies of globally distributed taxa are crucial to estimate the mode and tempo of common intercontinental biogeographic processes. However, few of these studies have focused on invertebrates, mainly because their taxonomy and species richness generally are highly neglected. Here we performed a morphological and mtDNA sequence-based sp...

Aim Since the Late Cretaceous, the Earth has gone through periods of climate change similar in scale and pace to the warming trend observed today in the Anthropocene. The impact of these ancient climatic events on the evolutionary trajectories of organisms provides clues on the organismal response to climate change, including extinction, migration...

Many claims that uplift of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau (QTP) drove the divergences of extant high-elevation biota have recently been challenged. For Mendacibombus bumblebees, high-elevation specialists with distributions centred on the QTP, we examine broader explanations. We extend integrative biogeography to cover multiple contributing factors by...

Paliurus (Rhamnaceae) is a small genus with a narrow and disjunct distribution in East Asia and the Mediterranean. Fossil evidence from the Late Cretaceous to the present suggests it once had a broad geographic distribution, encompassing parts of India, North America, Asia, and Europe. To reconstruct the evolutionary history of Paliurus and underst...

In this study, we review recent works in the phylogenetic investigations of plant–insect interactions. Thanks to the development of novel methodological approaches and the ever-increasing availability of informative molecular markers, it is indeed now possible to test more and more complex evolutionary scenarios. Here, we are limiting our review to...

Symbiotic associations with bacteria have facilitated important evolutionary transitions in insects and resulted in long-term obligate interactions. Recent evidence suggests that these associations are not always evolutionarily stable and that symbiont replacement, and/or supplementation of an obligate symbiosis by an additional bacterium, has occu...

Symbiotic associations with bacteria have facilitated important evolutionary transitions in insects and resulted in long-term obligate interactions. Recent evidence suggests that these associations are not always evolutionarily stable and that symbiont replacement and/or supplementation of an obligate symbiosis by an additional bacterium has occurr...

Symbiotic associations with bacteria have facilitated important evolutionary transitions in insects and resulted in long-term obligate interactions. Recent evidence suggests that these associations are not always evolutionarily stable and that symbiont replacement and/or supplementation of an obligate symbiosis by an additional bacterium has occurr...

Global climate change and its impact on biodiversity levels have made extinction a relevant topic in biological research. Yet, until recently, extinction has received less attention in macroevolutionary studies than speciation; the reason is the difficulty to infer an event that actually eliminates rather than creates new taxa. For example, in biog...

The bacterial communities inhabiting arthropods are generally dominated by a few endosymbionts that play an important role in the ecology of their hosts. Rather than comparing bacterial species richness across samples, ecological studies on arthropod endosymbionts often seek to identify the main bacterial strains associated with each specimen studi...

The Rand Flora is a well-known floristic pattern in which unrelated plant lineages show similar disjunct distributions in the continental margins of Africa and adjacent islands—Macaronesia-northwest Africa, Horn of Africa-Southern Arabia, Eastern Africa, and Southern Africa. These lineages are now separated by environmental barriers such as the ari...

Aim: Scenarios of aphid evolution suggest that adaptation to host plants plays a major role in aphid diversification. It is therefore commonly assumed that host association has also shaped the biogeographical patterns of aphids; particularly , it has been hypothesized that the intercontinental disjunctions observed in the Holarctic for many aphid g...

Primers and sequence variation for two low-copy nuclear genes (LCG) not previously used for phylogenetic inference in the genus Hypericum, PHYC and EMB2765, are presented here in comparison with the fast-evolving nuclear intergenic spacer ITS. Substitution rates in the LCG markers were two times lower than those reported in ITS for Hypericum, which...

Résumé Ce travail synthétise et actualise les nouvelles données du gisement d’El Sidrón (Asturies, Nord de l’Espagne). Depuis 2000, le site d’El Sidrón, daté d’environ 49 000 ans, délivre systématiquement de nouveaux restes d’Homo neanderthalensis. L’assemblage osseux se trouve en position secondaire et provient certainement d’un lieu extérieur att...

Existe un enigmático patrón florístico que ha intrigado a científicos y naturalistas desde hace décadas. Consiste en una distribución de linajes de plantas emparentados que se encuentran distribuidos en regiones florísticas alrededor del continente africano, y separados por áreas de clima hostil. En biogeografía este tipo de distribuciones fragment...

In our review, we link the outstanding species richness in northern South America to the cataclysmic changes induced by Andean mountain building. Evidence for this is the correlation between sedimentary records, the paleontological record, dated molecular phylogenies, and present species distributions. Our conclusions contradict the hypothesis that...

Various scholars have pioneered sex assessment from different parts of the skeleton based on metrical or qualitative morphological characteristics. Lately though, a new technique which combines both traditional methods is becoming popular in forensic anthropology. Geometric-morphometrics is a field of multivariate statistical biometric analysis whi...