ID: 613 / 55

Category: Symposia

Track: Pending

Proposed Symposium Title: MECHANISMS UNDERLYING PLANT DIVERSITY PATTERNS IN THE EAST ASIAN–AUSTRALASIAN REGION

Abstract: The East Asia-Southeast Asia-Australasian region forms a continuum of plant diversity hotspots along a wide range of latitudes, accounting for a large proportion of global plant diversity. The region’s unique biogeographical setting, including smaller and larger islands unevenly distributed on latitudinal or climatic gradients, allows a better understanding of classic evolutionary questions that have intrigued biogeographers, systematists, and ecologists for decades (even centuries). The East Asia-Southeast Asia-Australasian region includes a relatively geologically stable continental landmass and a complex of geologically composite and highly active terranes. Historical expansion/contraction of distribution ranges of taxa via climate changes and geological dynamics is a key to understanding the current plant diversity in the region. However, the mechanisms of distribution of many of its component taxa and species diversity patterns still need to be completed. In this symposium, we will explore the biogeography of the East Asian/SE Asian/Australasian region via a series of studies of plant taxa with distributions either spanning the region or within particular sub-areas of the region. We will invite young researchers from systematics, phylogeography, and biogeography, screen what is known of the floras, and discuss priority hypotheses to be tested to reveal the origin and maintenance of plant diversity in the East Asia-Southeast Asia-Australasian region.

Speaker 1: Name: Elizabeth Joyce Institution affiliation: Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich E-mail: elizabethmariejoyce@gmail.com Tentative talk title: Australian paleoclimate drives biotic exchange patterns across Wallace’s Line

Speaker 2: Name: Pirada Sumanon Institution affiliation: Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Silpakorn University E-mail: psumanon@gmail.com Tentative talk title: Historical biogeography of Maesa (Primulaceae) with an emphasis on the Malay Archipelago

Speaker 3: Name: Shogo Ikari Institution affiliation: Faculty of Science, the University of the Ryukyus E-mail: anchor200km@gmail.com Tentative talk title: Cenozoic dynamics of beta diversity in East Asian angiosperm woody plants: cooling and increased fluctuation of climate drive distance-dependent turnover

Topics (Up to three): Biogeography / Phylogeography

Topic 2: Paleobotany / Archaeobotany

Topic 3: Systematics

Justification: In this symposium we present different plant biogeographic studies, focusing on examples of the biogeographic questions that have intrigued evolutionary biologists globally but are relevant to the East Asian/SE Asian/Australasian region. In order to investigate these questions and hypotheses around the biogeographic history of this region, we have invited a diverse range of speakers covering examples of biogeographic studies of the plant taxonomic groups that are found in region.