Tropical Africa is home to an astonishing biodiversity occurring in a variety of ecosystems. Past climatic change and geological events have impacted the evolution and diversification of this biodiversity. During the last two decades, around 90 dated molecular phylogenies of different clades across animals and plants have been published leading to an increased understanding of the diversification and speciation processes generating tropical African biodiversity. In parallel, extended geological and palaeoclimatic records together with detailed numerical simulations have refined our understanding of past geological and climatic changes in Africa. To date, these important advances have not been reviewed within a common framework. Here, we critically review and synthesize African climate, tectonics and terrestrial biodiversity evolution throughout the Cenozoic to the mid‐Pleistocene, drawing on recent advances in Earth and life sciences. We first review six major geo‐climatic periods defining tropical African biodiversity diversification by synthesizing 89 dated molecular phylogeny studies. Two major geo‐climatic factors impacting the diversification of the sub‐Saharan biota are highlighted. First, Africa underwent numerous climatic fluctuations at ancient and more recent timescales, with tectonic, greenhouse gas, and orbital forcing stimulating diversification. Second, increased aridification since the Late Eocene led to important extinction events, but also provided unique diversification opportunities shaping the current tropical African biodiversity landscape. We then review diversification studies of tropical terrestrial animal and plant clades and discuss three major models of speciation: (i) geographic speciation via vicariance (allopatry); (ii) ecological speciation impacted by climate and geological changes, and (iii) genomic speciation via genome duplication. Geographic speciation has been the most widely documented to date and is a common speciation model across tropical Africa. We conclude with four important challenges faced by tropical African biodiversity research: (i) to increase knowledge by gathering basic and fundamental biodiversity information; (ii) to improve modelling of African geophysical evolution throughout the Cenozoic via better constraints and downscaling approaches; (iii) to increase the precision of phylogenetic reconstruction and molecular dating of tropical African clades by using next generation sequencing approaches together with better fossil calibrations; (iv) finally, as done here, to integrate data better from Earth and life sciences by focusing on the interdisciplinary study of the evolution of tropical African biodiversity in a wider geodiversity context.

中文翻译：

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热带非洲陆地动植物的构造、气候和多样化

热带非洲拥有各种生态系统中令人惊讶的生物多样性。过去的气候变化和地质事件影响了这种生物多样性的演变和多样化。在过去的二十年中，已经发表了大约 90 种不同动物和植物进化枝的过时分子系统发育，从而加深了对产生热带非洲生物多样性的多样化和物种形成过程的了解。与此同时，扩展的地质和古气候记录以及详细的数值模拟提高了我们对非洲过去地质和气候变化的理解。迄今为止，尚未在一个共同框架内审查这些重要进展。在这里，我们批判性地审查和综合非洲气候，整个新生代到中更新世的构造和陆地生物多样性演化，借鉴了地球和生命科学的最新进展。我们首先通过综合 89 个过时的分子系统发育研究来回顾定义热带非洲生物多样性多样化的六个主要地理气候时期。突出了影响撒哈拉以南生物群多样化的两个主要地理气候因素。首先，非洲在古代和最近的时间尺度上经历了多次气候波动，构造、温室气体和轨道强迫刺激了多样化。其次，自始新世晚期以来干旱化加剧导致了重要的灭绝事件，但也提供了独特的多样化机会，塑造了当前的热带非洲生物多样性景观。然后，我们回顾了热带陆生动植物进化枝的多样化研究，并讨论了三种主要的物种形成模型：（i）通过替代（allopatry）的地理物种形成；(ii) 受气候和地质变化影响的生态物种形成，以及 (iii) 通过基因组复制的基因组物种形成。地理物种形成是迄今为止记录最广泛的，是热带非洲常见的物种形成模型。我们总结了热带非洲生物多样性研究面临的四个重要挑战：(i) 通过收集基本和基本的生物多样性信息来增加知识；(ii) 通过更好的约束和缩减方法改进整个新生代非洲地球物理演化的建模；(iii) 通过使用下一代测序方法以及更好的化石校准，提高热带非洲进化枝系统发育重建和分子测年的精度；(iv) 最后，正如这里所做的那样，通过关注在更广泛的地理多样性背景下对热带非洲生物多样性演变的跨学科研究，更好地整合来自地球和生命科学的数据。