Historical relationships of the Mesoamerican highlands, with emphasis on tropical montane cloud forests: a temporal cladistic biogeographical analysis

The historical relationships of nine areas of endemism of the tropical montane cloud forests (TMCFs) were analysed based on a temporal cladistic biogeographical approach. Three cladistic biogeographical analyses were conducted based on 29 cladograms of terrestrial taxa by partitioning them into three time-slices, namely, Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene. The results showed different area relationships over time. For the Miocene and Pliocene time slices, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec acted as a geographic barrier that fragmented the TMCFs into two portions: west of the Isthmus and east of the Isthmus. In the case of the Pleistocene, the TMCFs were broken into two portions, one related to the Neotropical region and the other to the Nearctic region. Furthermore, the analyses allowed us to detect the influences of different geological and paleoclimatological events on the distribution of the TMCFs over time. Therefore, the TMCFs current distribution might have been driven by geological events during the Miocene-Pliocene, whereas climatic fluctuations have the highest impact during the Pleistocene.

Automated summary

The historical relationships of nine areas of endemism in the tropical montane cloud forests were analyzed using a temporal cladistic biogeographical approach. Geographic barriers and climatic fluctuations influenced the fragmentation and distribution of the TMCFs over time. The results highlight the importance of geological events during the Miocene-Pliocene and climatic fluctuations during the Pleistocene in shaping the current distribution of TMCFs.