Multi-locus plastid phylogenetic biogeography supports the Asian hypothesis of the temperate woody bamboos (Poaceae: Bambusoideae)

• Major temperate bamboo lineages rapidly diverged in the late Miocene in Asia.
• Temperate bamboos radiated from eastern Asia to Africa, Sri Lankan and North America during the Pliocene.
• The Sri Lankan Kuruna is recovered as sister to eastern Asian Chimonocalamus clade.
• At least two independent dispersals may explain the Asian and African disjunction of temperate bamboos.
• Beringian migration from Asia to North America seems to occur in the temperate bamboos.

In this paper we investigate the biogeography of the temperate woody bamboos (Arundinarieae) using a densely-sampled phylogenetic tree of Bambusoideae based on six plastid DNA loci, which corroborates the previously discovered 12 lineages (I–XII) and places Kuruna as sister to the Chimonocalamus clade. Biogeographic analyses revealed that the Arundinarieae diversified from an estimated 12 to 14 Mya, and this was followed by rapid radiation within the lineages, particularly lineages IV, V and VI, starting from c. 7–8 Mya. It is suggested that the late Miocene intensification of East Asian monsoon may have contributed to this burst of diversification. The possibilities of the extant Sri Lankan and African temperate bamboo lineages representing ‘basal elements’ could be excluded, indicating that there is no evidence to support the Indian or African route for migration of temperate bamboo ancestors to Asia. Radiations from eastern Asia to Africa, Sri Lanka, and to North America all are likely to have occurred during the Pliocene, to form the disjunct distribution of Arundinarieae we observe today. The two African lineages are inferred as being derived independently from Asian ancestors, either by overland migrations or long-distance dispersals. Beringian migration may explain the eastern Asian–eastern North American disjunction.

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