Molecular Phylogeny and Historical Biogeography of Byrsonima (Malpighiaceae) Corroborates the Mid-Miocene Origins of Neotropical Savannas

We present a dated and calibrated molecular phylogeny for one of the most characteristic genera of Neotropical savannas, Byrsonima (Malpighiaceae), based on the ETS, ITS, and psbA-trnH markers. We sampled 33 species of Byrsonima and four species of the outgroups Blepharandra, Diacidia, and Pterandra to test the monophyly of the infrageneric classification of the genus. Bayesian inference (BI) analysis was performed for the combined molecular dataset. Seven morphological characters were optimized on the obtained tree. Calibration points derived from a published chronogram for Malpighiaceae were used alongside a relaxed, uncorrelated molecular clock on Beast 1.8.4. Ancestral range reconstructions focusing on four main Neotropical biomes (Cerrado, Atlantic rainforest, Amazon rainforest, and Caatinga dry forests) were performed on BioGeoBEARS. Our phylogenetic results corroborated the monophyly of Byrsonima, but all of its subgenera and sections were polyphyletic, with all morphological characters circumscribing these infrageneric ranks being highly homoplastic. The most recent common ancestor of Byrsonima was widespread in South American biomes at 11.41 Ma, posteriorly diversifying in the Amazon rainforests up to 7.72 Ma, when it started massively diversifying in Neotropical savannas. A few re-colonization events from savannas to rain or dry forests occurred from 2.95–0.53 Ma. These results corroborate the mid-Miocene origins of Neotropical savannas, and future studies should aim to sample Mesoamerican species of Byrsonima.