Spatial phylogenetics of the North American moss flora

Aim: We documented patterns of phylogenetic diversity (PD) and phylogenetic endemism (PE) in the moss flora of North America, determined how environmental variables explain these patterns, compared patterns in mosses to known patterns in angiosperms, and explored how patterns driven by subclades might conflict with patterns driven by other subclades.
Location: North America north of Mexico
Taxon: Mosses (Bryophyta)
Methods: A maximum-likelihood tree inferred from publicly available sequence data, and locality data from ca. 7.5 × 105 herbarium specimens, were combined to build a dataset of 935 species (representing ca. 67% of the known moss flora). Spatial randomization procedures were used to find significance levels of PD and relative phylogenetic diversity (RPD) for the full dataset and three major subclades, as well as to carry out a Categorical Analysis of Neo- and Paleo-Endemism (CANAPE). Range weighted turnover in both species and PE was used to identify phytogeographic regions ac...