Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany Volume 22 | Issue 1 Article 49 2006 The volutE ionary and Biogeographic Origin and Diversification of the Tropical Monocot Order Zingiberales W. John Kress Smithsonian Institution Chelsea D. Specht Smithsonian Institution; University of California, Berkeley Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/aliso Part of the Botany Commons Recommended Citation Kress, W. John and Specht, Chelsea D. (2006) "The vE olutionary and Biogeographic Origin and Diversification of the Tropical Monocot Order Zingiberales," Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany: Vol. 22: Iss. 1, Article 49. Available at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/aliso/vol22/iss1/49 Zingiberales MONOCOTS Comparative Biology and Evolution Excluding Poales Aliso 22, pp. 621-632 © 2006, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden THE EVOLUTIONARY AND BIOGEOGRAPHIC ORIGIN AND DIVERSIFICATION OF THE TROPICAL MONOCOT ORDER ZINGIBERALES W. JOHN KRESS 1 AND CHELSEA D. SPECHT2 Department of Botany, MRC-166, United States National Herbarium, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, PO Box 37012, Washington, D.C. 20013-7012, USA 1Corresponding author (
[email protected]) ABSTRACT Zingiberales are a primarily tropical lineage of monocots. The current pantropical distribution of the order suggests an historical Gondwanan distribution, however the evolutionary history of the group has never been analyzed in a temporal context to test if the order is old enough to attribute its current distribution to vicariance mediated by the break-up of the supercontinent. Based on a phylogeny derived from morphological and molecular characters, we develop a hypothesis for the spatial and temporal evolution of Zingiberales using Dispersal-Vicariance Analysis (DIVA) combined with a local molecular clock technique that enables the simultaneous analysis of multiple gene loci with multiple calibration points.