The tea family (Theaceae) has a highly unusual amphi-Pacific disjunct distribution: most extant species in the family are restricted to subtropical evergreen broadleaf forests in East Asia, while a handful of species occur exclusively in the subtropical and tropical Americas. Here, we used an approach that integrates the rich fossil evidence of this group with phylogenies in biogeographic analysis to study the processes behind this distribution pattern. We first combined genome-skimming sequencing with existing molecular data to build a robust species-level phylogeny for c.130 Theaceae species, resolving most important unclarified relationships. We then developed an empirical Bayesian method to incorporate distribution evidence from fossil specimens into historical biogeographic analyses and used this method to account for the spatiotemporal history of Theaceae fossils. We compared our method with an alternative Bayesian approach and show that it provides consistent results while significantly reduces computational demands which allows analyses of much larger data sets. Our analyses revealed a circumboreal distribution of the family from the early Cenozoic to the Miocene and inferred repeated expansions and retractions of the modeled distribution in the Northern Hemisphere, suggesting that the current Theaceae distribution could be the remnant of a larger continuous distribution associated with the boreotropical forest that has been hypothesized to occupy most of the northern latitudes in the early Cenozoic. These results contradict with studies that only considered current species distributions and showcase the necessity of integrating fossil and molecular data in phylogeny-based parametric biogeographic models to improve the reliability of inferred biogeographical events. [Biogeography; genome skimming; phylogenomics; plastid genome; Theaceae.]

中文翻译：

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通过高分辨率系统发育和化石推断茶科植物地理历史

茶科（Theaceae）具有非常不寻常的两栖太平洋分离分布：该科中的大多数现存物种仅限于东亚的亚热带常绿阔叶林，而少数物种仅出现在亚热带和热带美洲。在这里，我们使用了一种方法，将这一群体丰富的化石证据与生物地理学分析中的系统发育相结合，来研究这种分布模式背后的过程。我们首先将基因组略读测序与现有的分子数据相结合，为 c.130 Theaceae 物种建立了强大的物种级系统发育，解决了最重要的未阐明的关系。然后，我们开发了一种经验贝叶斯方法，将化石标本的分布证据纳入历史生物地理学分析，并使用该方法来解释茶科化石的时空历史。我们将我们的方法与另一种贝叶斯方法进行了比较，结果表明它提供了一致的结果，同时显着降低了计算需求，从而可以分析更大的数据集。我们的分析揭示了该家族从新生代早期到中新世的环北分布，并推断出北半球模拟分布的反复扩张和收缩，表明当前的 Theaceae 分布可能是与北方热带森林相关的更大连续分布的残余，该森林被假设在新生代早期占据了大部分北部纬度。这些结果与仅考虑当前物种分布的研究相矛盾，并展示了将化石和分子数据整合到基于系统发育的参数生物地理模型中以提高推断生物地理事件的可靠性的必要性。[生物地理学；基因组略读；系统基因组学；质体基因组；茶科。] 这些结果与仅考虑当前物种分布的研究相矛盾，并展示了将化石和分子数据整合到基于系统发育的参数生物地理模型中以提高推断生物地理事件的可靠性的必要性。[生物地理学；基因组略读；系统基因组学；质体基因组；茶科。] 这些结果与仅考虑当前物种分布的研究相矛盾，并展示了将化石和分子数据整合到基于系统发育的参数生物地理模型中以提高推断生物地理事件的可靠性的必要性。[生物地理学；基因组略读；系统基因组学；质体基因组；茶科。]