Bird's nest ferns spread from Asia and multiplied on remote islands
Han YT, Zhang JS, Zhang L, Zhou XM, Pollawat R
Ferns
The bird's nest fern sold as a houseplant belongs to a group whose relatives drifted across oceans as spores and became new species on islands, which explains why these ferns thrive in humid, epiphytic conditions like the ones in your terrarium or shaded porch.
Scientists built a family tree of about 137 bird's nest ferns and their close relatives, using DNA from nearly 300 samples. The group began in the Asia-Australia region and later spread across the tropics, with spores travelling long distances over oceans. Once they landed on islands, especially in the Pacific, they split into many new species.
Key Findings
The Neottopteris clade split from its sister group about 59.5 million years ago, and its crown-group diversification began around 46.1 million years ago in the Eocene.
DNA from eight plastid markers across 296 samples covered 137 species (about 91% of the clade) and resolved 12 major subclades.
Ancestral range reconstruction points to an Asia-Australasia origin, with African lineages arising from multiple dispersals, Indian Ocean island species drawing ancestry from both Africa and Asia-Australasia, and Pacific-rich lineages such as clade IX showing island-centred diversification.
chevron_right Technical Summary
A family tree of over 130 bird's nest ferns and their relatives shows the group started on the Asian-Australasian mainland about 46 million years ago, then spread across the tropics and split into many new species on Pacific and Indian Ocean islands. Islands acted as repeated nurseries for new fern species.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Oceanic islands as cradles for plant diversification: a global phylogeny and biogeography of the Neottopteris clade (Asplenium; Aspleniaceae).
The Neottopteris clade, comprising over 150 species distributed across pantropical and subtropical regions, represents a morphologically distinct and ecologically significant group within the large...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
Species Mentioned
Was this useful?
Want to tell us more? (optional)
Thanks for the note!
Something went wrong — please try again.
Too many submissions. Try again in an hour.
Integrating multivariate analysis and Air Pollution Tolerance Index (APTI) to...
That spider plant or pothos sitting on your desk isn't just decoration — it may be actively scrubbing the air of chemicals you can't smell, and this study gi...
Asplenium is a genus of about 700 species of ferns, often treated as the only genus in the family Aspleniaceae, though other authors consider Hymenasplenium separate, based on molecular phylogenetic analysis of DNA sequences, a different chromosome count, and structural differences in the rhizome...