Niche conservatism and evolution of climatic tolerance in the Neotropical orchid genera Sobralia and Brasolia (Orchidaceae)

Sobralia and Brasolia form a large complex of Neotropical Orchidaceae. Although the molecular and morphological studies allowed to increase the rate of work on the modern classification of the taxa, they still require the attention as remaining without complete revision. The niche similarity analysis between representatives of Sobralia and recently segregated from this taxon—genus Brasolia is presented. The ecological tolerance evolution within the group was investigated with molecular clock analysis and phylogeny as the background. The phylogenetic analysis has confirmed the previous results and placed Brasolia representatives in a single clade with Elleanthus and Sobralia core as a separated group. The molecular clock analysis suggests that Sobralia and Brasolia are relatively young groups that evolved between 8.5 and 8 million years ago. Distribution of suitable niches of studied species is generally congruent with the known geographical ranges of particular taxa. The calculated niche overlap did not indicate any correlation between niche overlap and species phylogenetic relationships and remains low for both intra- and intergeneric relationships. The reconstruction of climatic tolerance evolution indicated that the studied species of Brasolia and Sobralia are characterized by generally similar ecological tolerance for most of the analyzed variables.