# New publication - Historical biogeography of Vellozia November 19, 2024 - [ News ](/news-categories/news) *Vellozia* is a neotropical genus with 127 species. It is iconic within the *campos rupestres* in Brazil, being one of the most abundant and species-rich endemic genera. The *campos* *rupestres* are a mountainous environment in the highlands of central-eastern Brazil, characterized by high species richness and endemism. A [recent paper](https://doi.org/10.1093/botlinnean/boae072) in *Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society* by HUH Research Fellow Jenifer Lopes and colleagues, investigates how past climate change helped shape *Vellozia*, this iconic genus's present distribution. **Abstract:** The *campos rupestres* and the Brazilian Atlantic Forest Inselbergs (BAFI) are highly diverse vegetation types that grow on mountaintops of eastern Brazil and show outstanding levels of endemism. The plant family Velloziaceae is an iconic element of these vegetations, with the genus *Vellozia*, being exceptionally abundant in both these vegetations. In this study, we use *Vellozia* as a model to address three main questions: (i) What was the distribution of *Vellozia*’s most recent common ancestor? (ii) Did the range expansions of *Vellozia* occur during periods characterized by global cooling? (iii) When did *Vellozia* colonize the different South American highlands they occupy nowadays? To address these questions, we reconstructed the phylogeny of *Vellozia* using sequences of four molecular markers analysed using Bayesian and maximum likelihood inferences. We used the resulting phylogeny to reconstruct the ancestral distribution of *Vellozia* using the DEC model. Our findings indicate that *Vellozia* originated and subsequently diversified in the Oligocene, when the genus was broadly distributed through the Andes, BAFI, *Cerrado*, *Caatinga*, and the *Chapada Diamantina*, suggesting that the *Cerrado* may acted as a corridor between the Andes and eastern mountaintop vegetations. *Vellozia* subsequently occupied the southern *Espinhaço* during the Early Miocene, which was followed by increased diversification rates and several range expansions, especially after the Middle-Miocene Climatic Optimum, when cooler and drier periods allowed the expansion of open environments and the retraction of forests, allowing *Vellozia* to expand their distribution. These results highlight the unique evolutionary history of *Vellozia* and the importance of climatic cooling for the expansion of the genus. Renato A Magri, Federico Luebert, Andressa Cabral, Suzana Alcantara, Lúcia G Lohmann, Jefferson Prado, Jenifer C Lopes, Historical biogeography of *Vellozia* (Velloziaceae) reveals range expansion in South American mountaintops after climatic cooling events and increased diversification rates after the occupation of Southern *Espinhaço* Province, *Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society*, 2024;, boae072, Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#)