The biogeographic origin of a radiation of trees in Madagascar: implications for the assembly of a tropical forest biome

Background Madagascar’s rain forests are characterized by extreme and uneven patterns of species richness and endemicity, the biogeographic and evolutionary origins of which are poorly understood. Methods Here we use a time-calibrated phylogeny of a dominant group of trees in Madagascar’s eastern rain forests, Canarium , and related Burseraceae (Canarieae), to test biogeographic hypotheses regarding the origin and radiation of the flora of this...