A synthesis of the biogeographic history of Brazil’s phytogeographic domains

In this study, we provide a comprehensive and updated overview of the biogeographic history of several Brazilian phytogeographic domains: the Amazon Rainforest, Brazilian Atlantic Forest, Caatinga, Cerrado, Pampa, and Pantanal. We also outline the main hypotheses that were proposed to explain the distribution patterns and endemism of taxa within these domains. The tropical forests, specifically the Amazon Rainforest and the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, were likely continuous during the Eocene optimum. However, global cooling and increased aridity in the late Eocene and part of the Oligocene led to the fragmentation of these extensive tropical forests. This fragmentation resulted in the creation of the dry diagonal, which includes the Cerrado, Caatinga, Pantanal, and Chaco regions. The dry diagonal served as a geographic barrier, promoting the formation of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest to the East and the Amazon Rainforest to the West. Despite this barrier, forest corridors likely existed between these domains, playing a crucial role in the segregation of the Caatinga from the Cerrado. The Caatinga is the most recent of these domains, having formed in the early to mid-Holocene. The lineages characteristic of the Cerrado likely diversified between the Miocene and early Pliocene.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Webbia

• Publication date

  2025-11-17

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.36253/jopt-19145
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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