Radiation of southern African daisies: Biogeographic inferences for subtribe Arctotidinae (Asteraceae, Arctotideae)

The majority of the approximately 80–90 species in subtribe Arctotidinae occur in southern Africa with the centre of diversity in the winter-rainfall region. Three species are restricted to afromontane eastern Africa and three species are endemic to Australia. To investigate biogeographic and phylogenetic relationships within Arctotidinae, sequence data from four cpDNA regions (psbA-trnH, trnT-trnL and trnL-trnF spacers and trnL intron) and the ITS nrDNA region for 59 Arctotidinae species were analyzed with parsimony and Bayesian-inference approaches. Eight well-supported major lineages were resolved. The earliest-diverging extant lineages are afromontane or inhabit mesic habitats, whereas almost all sampled taxa from the winter-rainfall and semi-arid areas have diverged more recently. Molecular dating estimated that the major clades diverged during the Miocene and Pliocene, which is coincident with the trend of increasing rainfall seasonality, aridification and vegetation changes in southwestern Africa. Trans-oceanic dispersal to Australia was estimated to have occurred during the Pliocene.