A global bioregionalisation for orchids.
Jiménez-López DA, Ramírez-Barahona S, Zizka A, Kessler M, Jiménez-Alfaro B
Native Plants
If you've ever tried to grow an orchid and watched it sulk, knowing it evolved in a distinct climate realm — Neotropical, Indo-Malaysian, Holarctic — explains why matching its native conditions matters far more than any fertilizer trick.
Researchers gathered nearly three-quarters of a million location records for orchids worldwide and used family-tree data for over 19,000 species to draw the first-ever map dividing the globe into orchid 'homelands.' They found six major zones — think of them like the orchid world's continents — and discovered that rainfall and temperature (including how much they vary through the year) are the biggest reasons orchids in Australia look so different from orchids in the Amazon. The study also identified four fuzzy transition areas where neighboring zones overlap and species mingle.
Key Findings
Six global orchid realms identified: Australian, Andean-Patagonian, Neotropical, Afrotropical, Indo-Malaysian, and Holarctic, plus 10 finer-scale bioregions.
732,359 distribution records and a phylogeny of 19,123 species were used, making this the most comprehensive orchid biogeography study to date.
Mean annual precipitation and temperature, along with their seasonal variation, were the strongest environmental drivers shaping realm boundaries.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists mapped the world's orchids into six major geographic zones based on which species live where and how they're related — the first such global map for any major plant family. Climate, especially rainfall and temperature patterns, turned out to be the main force shaping these zones.
Abstract Preview
Bioregionalisation is a hierarchical system that categorises geographical areas according to their biotic composition and evolutionary history. While a global bioregionalisation has been proposed f...
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Species Mentioned
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