Bayesian estimation of the global biogeographical history of the Solanaceae

Aim: The tomato family Solanaceae is distributed on all major continents except Antarctica and has its centre of diversity in South America. Its worldwide distribution suggests multiple long-distance dispersals within and between the New and Old Worlds. Here, we apply maximum likelihood (ML) methods and newly developed biogeographical stochastic mapping (BSM) to infer the ancestral range of the family and to estimate the frequency of dispersal and vicariance events resulting in its present-day distribution. Location: Worldwide. Methods: Building on a recently inferred megaphylogeny of Solanaceae, we conducted ML model fitting of a range of biogeographical models with the program ‘BioGeoBEARS’. We used the parameters from the best fitting model to estimate ancestral range probabilities and conduct stochastic mapping, from which we estimated the number and type of biogeographical events. Results: Our best model supported South America as the ancestral area for the Solanaceae and its major...