Climbing higher: exploring Northern Andean origin and non-floral trait evolution in a rapid, recent angiosperm radiation

This SRA submission provides raw sequence data in FASTQ format from a Hyb-Seq targeted sequence capture experiment conducted on Burmeistera, a rapid radiation of Andean bellflowers (Campanulaceae), and other closely related centropogonid taxa (Centropogon, Siphocampylus outgroups). This dataset was analyzed in the following paper:Ashokan, A., Bagley, J.C., and Muchhala, N. (2025) Climbing higher: exploring Northern Andean origin and non-floral trait evolution in a rapid, recent angiosperm radiation. Journal of Biogeography.(Note: this work may also be published as a preprint with location and date TBD).Brief Study Abstract: The centropogonid clade comprising Burmeistera H.Karst. & Triana, Centropogon C.Presl, and Siphocampylus Pohl stands out as among the most rapid plant radiations in the Neotropics. We investigated the origin and diversification of Burmeistera to enhance our understanding of fruit evolution and other non-floral traits in the genus. By exploring the interplay of morphological, ecological, and geographical factors, we sought to provide new insights into how these elements have influenced the evolutionary trajectory of Burmeistera. Using Hyb-Seq data from 329 nuclear loci, we reconstructed a phylogenetic tree of Burmeistera using maximum likelihood in RAxML and calibrated the final tree with prior age estimates for the Lobelioideae. Additionally, we estimated the species tree in ASTRAL and performed various phylogenetic comparative analyses to explore the historical biogeography and evolution of non-floral traits across Burmeistera. We found that Burmeistera originated in the Western Cordillera of the Colombian Andes, with species dispersing to the rest of the Northern Andes and Central America between the Late Pliocene and Mid-Pleistocene. Inflated fruits have evolved multiple times in the genus, with their distribution varying by region but reaching the highest proportion in the eastern slopes of the Andes. Higher elevations and larger fruit sizes both increased diversification, especially in a late-branching clade characterized by inflated berries and climbing habit, which underscores the role of these traits in driving diversification. Studies of diverse but overlooked taxa, such as Burmeistera bellflowers, can greatly aid our understanding of the ecology and evolution of Neotropical cloud forest ecosystems.See additional information in the paper as well as the Mendeley Data accession containing data files and code from our phylogenetic analyses, which has the following citation:Bagley, J.C., Ashokan, A., and Muchhala, N. (2025) Climbing higher: exploring Northern Andean origin and non-floral trait evolution in a rapid, recent angiosperm radiation. [Dataset] Mendeley Data, V.1. Available from: https://doi.org/10.17632/h579b2xvz5.1.