Side
Events.
Abstract
The
Mediterranean basin is one
of 25 hotspots of biodiversity
in the world, with 25,000
native plant species that
include about 13,000 endemics
and many plants of demonstrated
or potential medicinal use.
A rigorous reconstruction
of past temporal and spatial
dimensions is necessary
to elucidate the paleoecological
and paleoclimatic conditions
under which such impressive
diversity evolved, thus
adding useful knowledge
to current conservation
efforts.
Corsica and Sardinia, the
two largest islands of the
W Mediterranean, have been
identified as two of the
areas with the highest species
richness in the Mediterranean,
hence they play a key role
for understanding Mediterranean
biodiversity.
The complex, but well-known
geologic history of the
Corso-Sardinian (C-S) microplate,
marked by its Late Oligocene
link to NE Spain and S France
and Miocene land bridges
with W Italy, provides the
necessary framework to reconstruct
the history of floristic
assembly on these two islands.
In this session we will
review a number of recent
case studies where an integrative
phylogenetic approach, involving
molecular dating, ancestral
areas reconstruction, and
ecological niche modelling,
has been used to elucidate
the biogeographic origins
of plants endemic to Corsica
and Sardinia.
Key
words: biodiversity,
molecular dating, event-based
biogeography, paleogeology,
paleoclimate reconstruction,
endemism.
