Phylogenomics and a new fossil synthesis illuminate the early evolution of palms (Arecaceae)

Tropical rainforests are home to almost half of plant diversity, yet a shortfall in phylogenetic hypotheses for tropical plants hinders our understanding of how rainforests have formed and adapted to past global changes. Phylogenetic and historical biogeographic evidence from key rainforest lineages, such as palms (Arecaceae), is required to illuminate the history of these ecosystems. However, our current understanding of the palm tree of life is based on uneven sampling of plastid and nuclear data. Moreover, numerous palm genera and palm fossils have been described or revised over the past decade, casting doubt on palm relationships, ages, and ancestral ranges inferred in early studies. Here, we infer the phylogenetic relationships of all 184 palm genera based on data from 1,033 nuclear genes generated using target sequence capture. Our palm phylogenomic tree is highly resolved and supported. Remaining areas of ambiguity reflect the complex dynamics of palm evolution, including rapid d..., , , # Data from: Phylogenomics and a new fossil synthesis illuminate the early evolution of palms (Arecaceae) [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pzgmsbcwg](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.pzgmsbcwg) ## Description of the data and file structure This repository contains the **Supplementary Methods**, **Supplementary Figures** (Bellot_et_al_Origin_and_Evolution_of_Palms_Supplementary_Material.pdf), and **Supplementary Tables** (Bellot_et_al_Origin_and_Evolution_of_Palms_Supplementary_Tables_S1_S2_S3_S4_S5_S6.xlsx) associated with the above publication, as well as **alignment, gene tree, and species tree files** (Alignments_and_Trees_for_Dryad.zip). More details on the Supplementary Methods, Figures, and Tables are included at the beginning of the Supplementary Materials file. The **Alignments_and_Trees_for_Dryad.zip** folder contains the following: **Raw_sequence_files_before_alignment.zip**:Â A directory containing the sequences of the 1255 loci before alignment. The directory contains a file..., ,