The enigmatic tropical alpine flora on the African sky islands is young, disturbed, and unsaturated

There are new insights into the evolutionary origins of African high mountain botanical diversity.

Plants on the tops of high mountains in the tropics of Africa are often bizarre. Giant rosette forming senecios and lobelias tower above dwarf shrubs and other plants that have found strategies to resist extreme daily fluctuations between wintery, often sub-zero temperatures at night, followed by high insolation, summer-like conditions during the day. Sky islands poke out of a sea of different tropical vegetation. They are unique and isolated.

Martha Kandziora is the lead author of a paper that was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She and colleagues analyzed genome data from an unprecedented sampling across afroalpine plants using novel techniques. Climate changes caused by the ice age cycles are most likely to have caused the extinction of this remarkable flora.

The afroalpine flora may have had frequent extinctions and recolonization, but this is nothing compared to the rapid pace of modern human-mediated extinctions. Climate change is affecting the entire ecosystems. The afroalpine flora is particularly vulnerable to climate warming because it reduces the habitat into successively smaller areas at higher altitudes.

The work is the latest in a series of papers presented by Kandziora and international partners that shed light on the origins of the plant groups found in the tropics. Research using cutting edge genomic data and bioinformatic tools will look for general processes underlying plant diversity in these fascinating habitats.

More information: Martha Kandziora et al, The enigmatic tropical alpine flora on the African sky islands is young, disturbed, and unsaturated, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2112737119 Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Citation: The enigmatic tropical alpine flora on the African sky islands is young, disturbed, and unsaturated (2022, May 30) retrieved 30 May 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-05-enigmatic-tropical-alpine-flora-african.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.