Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

9-2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Biology

Advisor

Fabián Michelangeli

Committee Members

Ana Carnaval

Robert Anderson

Janelle Burke

Brian Smith

Subject Categories

Biodiversity | Botany | Evolution | Plant Biology

Keywords

Andes, Dioecy, Diversification, Pollination

Abstract

Understanding the factors that shape diversification and distribution in tropical plant lineages is central to explaining the origins of Neotropical biodiversity. Assessing evolutionary history with trait evolution and climatic niche dynamics provides key insights into the drivers of diversification and biogeography, while natural history data remains critical for these evolutionary studies. The Tropical Andes, with its exceptional biodiversity and environmental heterogeneity, offers an ideal setting to explore these processes. In this dissertation, I investigate how reproductive systems, climatic niche dynamics, and pollination strategies influence the evolution and biogeography of Miconia III, a large and ecologically diverse clade in the family Melastomataceae. I integrate phylogenomic, field, and herbarium-based approaches to examine evolutionary processes in a spatially and temporally explicit framework. I find that the evolution of dioecy is associated with increased diversification and that climatic niche evolution in Miconia III occurs along individual environmental axes, highlighting the interplay of trait evolution and environmental factors in driving Andean plant diversification. Lastly, I provide new pollination data for two species and find that contrasting pollination systems are linked with other floral and reproductive traits.

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