Western Ghats is museum and cradle of evolutionary diversity, says CCMB study

Western Ghats is a global biodiversity hotspot with many woody plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, fishes and insects, among other life forms. Many are endemic, meaning they occur only in this area and nowhere else. The evolutionary diversity is unevenly distributed across the Western Ghats, driven by past climatic and geographic processes and also by current climate, say scientists of the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) here on Monday.

A new study of CCMB’s Jahnavi Joshi and her group, done in collaboration with other national and international institutions, sheds light on the evolution of plants in the Western Ghats where they have found effects of niche conservatism for wet sites and also evolution of a new species.

“Western Ghats have a high diversity of woody plants, with over 60% being endemic. They serve as a “museum” and “cradle” of evolutionary diversity, which means it has both old and young (on evolutionary timescales in millions of years) species. The southern Western Ghats has six times higher number of species than the northern Western Ghats,” said Abhishek Gopal, first author of the study.

Ms. Joshi said such studies spanning over a geographic area, looking at timescales in millions of years, and includes hundreds of species, are helpful as they help us understand if there are any generalities in how diversity is generated and maintained.

“We show that the Western Ghats hold tremendous evolutionary diversity. We highlight the global value and the importance of protecting the southern part - an engine of plant diversification and persistence. The results of this study can also be used to augment the existing protected areas in the landscape facing severe anthropogenic stress.” she said.

The study has been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of B, said a press release.