Thomas L P Couvreur

Institute of Research for Development | IRD · 232 - Diversity, Adaptation and Development of Cultivated Plants (DIADE)

The tropical rain forests (TRF) of Africa are the second largest block of this biome after the Amazon and exhibit high levels of plant endemism and diversity. Two main hypotheses have been advanced to explain speciation processes that have led to this high level of biodiversity: allopatric speciation linked to geographic isolation and ecological sp...

Understanding how biodiversity is shaped through time is a fundamental question in biology. Even though tropical rain forests (TRF) represent the most diverse terrestrial biomes on the planet, the timing, location and mechanisms of their diversification remain poorly understood. Molecular phylogenies are valuable tools for exploring these issues, b...

Aim Species distribution modelling typically relies completely or partially on climatic variables as predictors, overlooking the fact that these are themselves predictions with associated uncertainties. This is particularly critical when such predictors are interpolated between sparse station data, such as in the tropics. The goal of this study is...

A distinctive new monotypic genus from Gabon is described in the tropical plant family Annonaceae: Sirdavidia, in honor to Sir David Attenborough. Molecular phylogenetic analyses confirm that Sirdavidia, which is very distinct from a morphological standpoint, is not nested in any existing genus of Annonaceae and belongs to tribe Piptostigmateae (su...

The Checklist of the Vascular Plants of the Republic of Guinea (CVPRG) is a specimen-based, expert-validated knowledge product, which provides a concise synthesis and overview of current knowledge on 3901 vascular plant species documented from Guinea (Conakry), West Africa, including their accepted names and synonyms, as well as their distribution...

Three new species of Valeriana from southern Ecuador are described and illustrated. Valeriana plateadensis is found near the highest peak of Cerro Plateado in Cordillera del Cóndor at 2900 m a.s.l. and is recognized by the shrubby habit and sessile, densely imbricate, spatulate leaves and 3-lobed corollas. V. yacuriensis is found near Lagunas Negra...

A Floresta Nacional do Tapajós (Flona Tapajós) é uma unidade de conservação (UC) de uso sustentável criada através do Decreto n° 73.684, de 19 de fevereiro de 1974. Delimitada a oeste pelo rio Tapajós e a leste pela rodovia BR-163, ao longo de sua história sua área original foi modificada diversas vezes, possuindo atualmente 527.319 hectares locali...

The Annonaceae family contains important tropical crops, but the number of species used commercially is limited, and development of other promising species for cultivation is hindered by a lack of genomic resources to support the building of breeding programmes. The family is part of the magnoliids, an ancient lineage of angiosperms for which evolu...

Annonaceae is a major pantropical family with 113 genera and about 2550 species. Cameroon is one of the most biodiverse countries in Africa but its flora remains incompletely known. In this volume of the Flora of Cameroon, we describe 166 native taxa representing 163 species in 28 native genera within the family Annonaceae. A total of 22 species (a...

Societal Impact Statement The United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration underlines the importance of understanding how different taxa are affected by human induced, global changes in ecosystems. Here, we investigate if this impact can be quantified for the globally distributed tropical plant group Annonaceae (Soursop family) using distribution...

Bactris gasipaes var. gasipaes (Arecaceae, Palmae) is an economically and socially important plant species for populations across tropical South and Central America. It has been domesticated from its wild variety, B. gasipaes var. chichagui, since pre-Columbian times. In this study, we sequenced the plastome of the cultivated variety, B. gasipaes K...

Western Ecuador harbours high plant diversity and endemism. The region of Manabí has known intense deforestation over the last decades, but lowland rain forests persist in a network of small forest fragment patches. Here, we describe two new magnoliid tree species from a small privately owned forest fragment known as La Esperanza reserve, in the El...

Plant species providing Non‐Timber Forest Products (NTFP) are economically important across Africa. How this heterogeneous and understudied resource will respond to ongoing climate change remains understudied. Here, we modelled the impact of end‐of‐the‐century climate change on the distribution of 40 NTFP plant species distributed across tropical A...

We report the rediscovery of the Critically Endangered cloud forest herb Gasteranthus extinctus , not seen since 1985. In 2019 and 2021, G. extinctus was recorded at five sites in the western foothills of the Ecuadorian Andes, 4–25 km from the type locality at the celebrated Centinela ridge. We describe the species’ distribution, abundance, habitat...

As a part of the Chocó Biogeographic region, Western Ecuador harbors high biodiversity and endemism. Ecosystems in Western Ecuador have suffered heavy modification since the middle of the 20th century becoming a critical ecosystem for conservation and a biodiversity hotspot (González-Jaramillo et al. 2016). This has had drastic effects on the conse...

The Cerro Plateado Biological Reserve is a remote, uninhabited and little-explored region of the palm-rich country of Ecuador. We undertook a joint botanical expedition to this southeastern Andean region to collect and document palms in order to complete our knowledge of the palm flora of Ecuador.

We assessed and optimized a capture protocol in 20 different species from 6 different plant genus using kits from 20,000 to 200,000 baits targeting from 300 to 32,000 genes. We evaluated both the effectiveness of the capture protocol and the fold enrichment in targeted sequences. We proposed a protocol with multiplexing up to 96 samples in a single...

Raphia gabonica has most recently been assessed for The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2020. Raphia gabonica is listed as Endangered under criteria B2ab(iii).

The palm tribe Lepidocaryeae (Arecaceae) comprises seven genera and 51 currently accepted species that are distributed in lowland tropical forests and savannas across Africa and the Americas. Subtribal relationships within Lepidocaryeae have been a persistent challenge,limiting our understanding of its systematics, morphology, and biogeography. Sev...

El Neotrópico constituye un importante centro de diversificación de palmeras con más de 730 especies en 65 géneros (Henderson et al., 1995; Dransfield et al., 2008). De esta enorme diversidad, apenas una especie de palmera ha sido totalmente domesticada desde los tiempos precolombinos: la chonta o chontaduro (Bactris gasipaes var. gasipaes Kunth; C...

Estimating time-dependent rates of speciation and extinction from dated phylogenetic trees of extant species (timetrees), and determining how and why they vary, is key to understanding how ecological and evolutionary processes shape biodiversity. Due to an increasing availability of phylogenetic trees, a growing number of process-based methods rely...

The palm tribe Phytelepheae form a clade of three genera and eight species whose phylogenetic relationships and historical biogeography are not fully understood. Based on morphological similarities and phylogenetic relatedness, it has been suggested that Phytelephas seemannii and Phytelephas schottii are synonyms of Phytelephas macrocarpa, implying...

Trait data represent the basis for ecological and evolutionary research and have relevance for biodiversity conservation, ecosystem management and earth system modelling. The collection and mobilization of trait data has strongly increased over the last decade, but many trait databases still provide only species-level, aggregated trait values (e.g....

East Africa is a hotspot of biodiversity with many endemic plant species. We describe three new species of the genus Uvariodendron (Annonaceae) from the coastal forests of Kenya and Tanzania. Uvariodendron mbagoi Dagallier & Couvreur, sp. nov. is endemic to Tanzania and unique within the genus by its strong bergamot scent and its tomentose fruits h...

The flowering plant family Annonaceae includes important commercially grown tropical crops, but development of promising species is hindered by a lack of genomic resources to build breeding programs. Annonaceae are part of the magnoliids, an ancient lineage of angiosperms for which evolutionary relationships with other major clades remain unclear....

AIM Pleistocene (2.58 Ma–11.7 ka) climatic fluctuations have shaped intraspecific genetic patterns worldwide; however, their impact on species in many regions remains unknown. In order to determine the impact of Pleistocene climatic fluctuations on the tropical rain forests of western Ecuador, we explored the evolutionary history of the endemic pal...

Well-supported phylogenies are a prerequisite for the study of the evolution and diversity of life on earth. The subfamily Calamoideae accounts for more than one fifth of the palm family (Arecaceae), occurs in tropical rainforests across the world, and supports a billion-dollar industry in rattan products. It contains ca. 550 species in 17 genera,...

A bstract Estimating time-dependent rates of speciation and extinction from dated phylogenetic trees of extant species (timetrees), and determining how and why they vary is key to understanding how ecological and evolutionary processes shape biodiversity. Due to an increasing availability of phylogenies, a growing number of process-based methods re...

Raphia palms are quintessential elements in many sub-Saharan African landscapes. The submontane species, Raphia vinifera, mainly grows in the Cameroonian highlands between 1000 and 2000 m. It is a characteristic element of the vegetation of the Grassfields region. In addition, like most Raphia species, R. vinifera plays a central role in people’s d...

Significance Understanding species’ evolutionary responses to past climate change is fundamental for improved biodiversity conservation. Species in the same area could exhibit either similar or individualistic evolutionary responses. We tested this hypothesis within the highly biodiverse tropical rain forests of Central Africa. We generated an unpa...

Madagascar fait partie des territoires les plus importants dans le monde en termes de diversité spécifique pour les palmiers ou la famille des Arecaceae. Sur les quelques 2800 espèces reconnues dans le monde, l'ile possède à elle seule 208 espèces natives dont plus de 98% en sont endémiques. Certains taxons sont uniques du point de vue biologique c...

Madagascar is one of the most important areas in the world in terms of species diversity for palms, the family Arecaceae. Out of the approximately 2500 species recognized in the world, the island alone has 208 indigenous species, of which more than 98% are endemic, found naturally nowhere else. Some taxa are unique from a biological point of view b...

Mauritia flexuosa dominated palm swamps are an important forest resource covering over 30,000 km2 across the Amazon basin. In Ecuadorean Amazonia, Mauritia flexuosa, a dioecious and arborescent palm species, forms small and isolated populations or large and dense stands on poorly drained soils. How these populations are genetically interconnected a...

Tropical 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...

The vegetable ivory palms (Phytelepheae) form a small group of Neotropical palms whose phylogenetic relationships are not fully understood. Three genera and eight species are currently recognized; however, it has been suggested that Phytelephas macrocarpa could include the species Phytelephas seemannii and Phytelephas schottii because of supposed p...

Aim Palms are an iconic, diverse and often abundant component of tropical ecosystems that provide many ecosystem services. Being monocots, tree palms are evolutionarily, morphologically and physiologically distinct from other trees, and these differences have important consequences for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration and storage) and...

The world’s second largest expanse of tropical rain forest is in Central Africa and it harbours enormous species diversity. Population genetic studies have consistently revealed significant structure across central African rain forest plants, in particular a North‐South genetic discontinuity around the equatorial line, in a continuous expanse of ra...

Aim: Palms are an iconic, diverse and often abundant component of tropical ecosystems that provide many ecosystem services. Being monocots, tree palms are evolutionarily, morphologically and physiologically distinct from other trees, and these differences have important consequences for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration and storage) an...

African rainforests (ARFs) are species rich and occur in two main rainforest blocks: West/Central and East Africa. This diversity is suggested to be the result of recent diversification, high extinction rates and multiple vicariance events between west/central and East African forests. We reconstructed the diversification history of two subtribes (...

Seed size shapes plant evolution and ecosystems, and may be driven by plant size and architecture, dispersers, habitat and insularity. How these factors influence the evolution of giant seeds is unclear, as are the rate of evolution and the biogeographical consequences of giant seeds. We generated DNA and seed size data for the palm tribe Borasseae...

Palms are conspicuous floristic elements across the tropics. In continental Africa, even though there are less than 70 documented species, they are omnipresent across the tropical landscape. The genus Raphia has 20 accepted species in Africa and one species endemic to the Neotropics. It is the most economically important genus of African palms with...

Palms are conspicuous floristic elements across the tropics. In continental Africa, even though there are less than 70 documented species, they are omnipresent across the tropical landscape. The genus Raphia has 20 accepted species in Africa and one species endemic to the Neotropics. It is the most economically important genus of African palms with...

The genus Raphia (Palmae / Arecaceae) contains 22 species and represents a major multiuse resource across tropical Africa and Madagascar. Raphia species provide goods that range from food to construction material and medicine. Its species play a vital cultural role in African societies. Despite its importance, the taxonomy, ecology, and ethnobotany...

Phylogenies are a central and indispensable tool for evolutionary and ecological research. Even though most angiosperm families are well investigated from a phylogenetic point of view, there are far less possibilities to carry out large-scale meta-analyses at order level or higher. Here, we reconstructed a large-scale dated phylogeny including near...

Preserving tropical biodiversity is an urgent challenge when faced with the growing needs of countries. Despite their crucial importance for terrestrial ecosystems, most tropical plant species lack extinction risk assessments, limiting our ability to identify conservation priorities. Using a novel approach aligned with IUCN Red List criteria, we co...

A key feature of life’s diversity is that some species are common but many more are rare. Nonetheless, at global scales, we do not know what fraction of biodiversity consists of rare species. Here, we present the largest compilation of global plant diversity to quantify the fraction of Earth’s plant biodiversity that are rare. A large fraction, ~36...

Determining where species diversify (cradles) and persist (museums) over evolutionary time is fundamental to understanding the distribution of biodiversity and for conservation prioritization. Here, we identify cradles and museums of angiosperm generic diversity across tropical Africa, one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth. Regions containing...

Phylogenies are a central and indispensable tool for evolutionary and ecological research. Even though most angiosperm families are well investigated from a phylogenetic point of view, there are far less possibilities to carry out large-scale meta-analyses at order level or higher. Here, we reconstructed a large-scale dated phylogeny including near...

A bstract The world’s second largest expanse of tropical rain forest is in Central Africa and it harbours enormous species diversity. Population genetic studies have consistently revealed significant structure across central African rain forest plants, in particular a North-South genetic discontinuity close to the equator at the level of a climatic...

The genus Raphia (Arecaceae/Palmae) is the most economically and culturally important genus of African palms. With over 20 recognized species, it is also the most diversified among tropical African palms. However, significant taxonomic confusion still persists in the genus. Raphia vinifera P.Beauv. is one of the first two names described in the gen...

The tribe Geonomateae is a widely distributed group of 103 species of Neotropical palms which contains six ecologically important understory or subcanopy genera. Although it has been the focus of many studies, our understanding of the evolutionary history of this group, and in particular of the taxonomically complex genus Geonoma, is far from compl...

Combining genetic and morphological markers is a powerful approach for species delimitation, much needed in tropical species complexes. Greenwayodendron (Annonaceae) is a widespread genus of trees distributed from West to East African rainforests. Two species and four infra‐specific taxa are currently recognized. However, preliminary genetic studie...

Deep relationships and the sequence of divergence among major lineages of angiosperms (magnoliids, monocots and eudicots) remain ambiguous and differ depending on analytical approaches and datasets used. Complete genomes potentially provide opportunities to resolve these uncertainties, but two recently published magnoliid genomes instead deliver fu...

Phytelephas aequatorialis is the commercially exploited ivory palm in western Ecuador, where less than 25% of the natural forest remains. To determine the conservation status of this palm, we visited 15 populations, growing under different degrees of human disturbance in both the lowlands and the lower Andean slopes. We collected leaf material for...

Research and conservation of palm species relies on training new generations of palm biologists, especially in tropical countries. Such trainings pave the way to answer new questions related to palm biology, sustainable management, the cultural and economic links between humans and palms, and build conservation strategies through education and civi...

Premise: Third-generation sequencing methods generate significantly longer reads than those produced using alternative sequencing methods. This provides increased possibilities for the study of biodiversity, phylogeography, and population genetics. We developed a protocol for in-solution enrichment hybridization capture of long DNA fragments appli...

Aim Long‐distance dispersal has contributed to the disjunct biogeographical distribution of rain forest plants—something that has fascinated biogeographers since Humboldt's time. However, the dispersal agent for these tropical plant lineages remains puzzling. Here, we investigate which frugivory‐related traits may have facilitated past intercontine...

Palmae