Podocarpaceae in Tropical Forests: a synthesis

[Extract] The Podocarpaceae comprises 18 genera and about 173 species of evergreen, coniferous trees and shrubs. It is the most successful gymnosperm family in angiosperm-dominated tropical forests (Brodribb, this volume). Podocarps are distributed mainly in the Southern Hemisphere, with populations also extending as far north as China and Japan and to Mexico and the Caribbean in the neotropics (Dalling et al., this volume; Enright and Jaffré, this volume; Adie and Lawes, this volume). Molecular and fossil evidence suggests that the Podocarpaceae originated during the Triassic–Jurassic in Gondwana (Biffin et al., this volume; Morley, this volume). Currently, the greatest generic diversity of the Podocarpaceae is in Malesia (Enright and Jaffré, this volume). Podocarps did not migrate into tropical latitudes until later in their evolutionary history, appearing for the first time in Southeast Asia during the late Eocene, probably dispersing via the Indian Plate (Morley, this volume). Thus, the present latitudinal distributions have emerged in Asia and Africa over the last 40 million years. Although extinction rates in general appear to have been high within the family, a major shift in diversification rate is estimated to have taken place in the mid-to Late Cretaceous and Paleocene, with most extant genera becoming established in Gondwana during this period