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The uplift of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau and global climate cooling triggered spatiotemporal evolution of Lonicera (Caprifoliaceae)

Pei-Feng Liu1,2,†, Yong-Xing He1,2,†, Yu-Xin Di1,2, Wei-Long Yang1,2, Guo-Qing Wang1,2, Jacob B. Landis3, Diego F. Morales-Briones4, Jens J. Ringelberg5, Qian Li1,2, Lin-Ke Su1,2, Shi-You Zuo1,2, Jun Wen6, Hua-Feng Wang1,2*   

  1. 1 Sanya Nanfan Research Institute of Hainan University, Hainan Yazhou Bay Seed Laboratory, Sanya 572025, China
    2 Key Laboratory of Tropical Biological Resources of Ministry of Education, College of Tropical Agricultural and Forestry, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China
    3 School of Integrative Plant Science, Section of Plant Biology and the L.H. Bailey Hortorium, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA
    4 Systematics, Biodiversity and Evolution of Plants, Department of Biology I, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Menzinger Str. 67, 80638, Munich, Germany
    5 School of Geosciences, Old College, University of Edinburgh, South Bridge, Edinburgh EH8 9YL, United Kingdom
    6 Department of Botany, National Museum of Natural History, MRC-166, Smithsonian Institution, PO Box 37012, Washington, DC 20013-7012, USA
    †These authors contributed equally to this work.
    *Authors for correspondence. E-mail: hfwang@hainanu.edu.cn
  • Received:2025-07-07 Accepted:2026-01-18
  • Supported by:
    The work was funded by the National Science Foundation of China (32270221), the Project of Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City (Grant number: SCKJ-JYRC-2022-83), and the Hainan Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (421RC486 and 822QN314).

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Abstract: The distribution patterns of plants in the Northern Hemisphere are closely linked to their evolutionary history. The genus Lonicera, commonly referred to as honeysuckle, is widely distributed across the northern temperate zone, making it an ideal model for exploring the distribution patterns and driving factors of plants in the Northern Hemisphere. This study, based on 108 globally distributed Lonicera samples (57 species) covered 22 of the 25 subsections of Lonicera recognized by Rehder (1903) and Nakai (1938), analyzed 485 orthologous loci and plastid genomes to investigate phylogenetic relationships and observed phylogenetic incongruence. QuIBL and f-branch analyses revealed that incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) is the primary driver of phylogenetic discordance, accompanied by widespread but weak introgression, with only a small proportion of triplets showing strong support for introgression with relatively high mixture weights. Biogeographic and diversity distribution analyses suggest that Lonicera originated in the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau (QXP) and/or East Asia, spread to North America and Europe, and established diversity centers in East Asia, Central Europe, and western North America. Our results support the hypothesis that the uplift of the QXP and global climate shift of the Eocene-Oligocene transition (EOT) were both evolutionary drivers, with varied ecological adaptability among various Lonicera lineages. This study provides new insights into the phylogeny and biogeographic evolution of Lonicera, while also serving as a reference for studies on the evolutionary history of plant and animal lineages.

Key words: Biogeography, Caprifoliaceae, Ecological analyses, Phylogenomics, Species diversification

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