Southern part of Western Ghats cradle of diversity for many woody plants

HYDERABAD: The Western Ghats of India, according to a study undertaken by the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, serve as a worldwide biodiversity hotspot with many woody plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, and insects, among other living creatures.

Dr. Jahnavi Joshi's group at the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, in collaboration with national and international universities, sheds light on the evolution of plants in India's Western Ghats region in a recent study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Many of them are endemic, which means they can only be found in this region. Ecologists and evolutionary biologists have long been captivated by the study of what variables influence species diversity and distribution patterns in a given area. Tools that use DNA information to establish how species were linked to one another have been critical in exploring the effect of historical climate on community or species diversity patterns over the last two decades.

They discover that evolutionary variety was unevenly dispersed across the Western Ghats, influenced by both historical and current climatic and geographic factors. Additionally, they have observed the effects of niche conservatism for wet sites, in which lineages tend to remain in the niche where they evolved and continue to persist, sometimes creating a new species.

“This study complements several taxonomic studies in the region, which show the Western Ghats have a high diversity of woody plants, with over 60% being endemic. Examination of the evolutionary diversity shows that southern Western Ghats serves as a “museum” and “cradle” of evolutionary diversity, which means it has both old and young (on evolutionary timescales in millions of years) species. These species also have restricted distribution in the southern Western Ghats, and interestingly this region has six times higher number of species than the northern Western Ghats”, said Abhishek Gopal, the first author of the study.

“Large scale studies like this which span huge geographic area, looking at timescales in millions of years and includes hundreds of species are helpful as they help us understand if there are any generalities in how diversity is “This study complements several taxonomic studies in the region, which show the Western Ghats have a high diversity of woody plants, with over 60% being endemic. Examination of the evolutionary diversity shows that southern Western Ghats serves as a “museum” and “cradle” of evolutionary diversity, which means it has both old and young (on evolutionary timescales in millions of years) species. These species also have restricted distribution in the southern Western Ghats, and interestingly this region has six times higher number of species than the northern Western Ghats”, said Abhishek Gopal, the first author of the study.

“Large scale studies like this which span huge geographic area, looking at timescales in millions of years and includes hundreds of species are helpful as they help us understand if there are any generalities in how diversity is generated and maintained. We show that the Western Ghats hold tremendous evolutionary diversity. We highlight the global value of the Western Ghats, demonstrating, in particular, the importance of protecting the southern Western Ghats - an engine of plant diversification and persistence. The results of this study can also be used to augment the existing protected areas in the landscape, which are facing severe anthropogenic stress.” said Dr Jahnavi Joshi, the senior author of this study.

Gopal, A., Bharti D. K., Page N., Dexter, K. G. Dexter, Krishnamani, R., Kumar, A., & Joshi, J. (2023). Range restricted old and young lineages show the southern Western Ghats to be both museum and cradle of diversity for woody plants. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 10.1098/rspb.2022.2513 and maintained. We show that the Western Ghats hold tremendous evolutionary diversity. We highlight the global value of the Western Ghats, demonstrating, in particular, the importance of protecting the southern Western Ghats - an engine of plant diversification and persistence. The results of this study can also be used to augment the existing protected areas in the landscape, which are facing severe anthropogenic stress said Dr Jahnavi Joshi, the senior author of this study.

Gopal, A., D. K. Bharti, N. Page, K. G. Dexter, R. Krishnamani, A. Kumar, and J. Joshi (2023). Range-restricted old and young lineages demonstrate the southern Western Ghats to be both a museum and cradle of diversity for woody plants.