A major mass extinction event took place at the end of the Cretaceous – 66 MYA, wiping out 75% of species (including dinosaurs). This means that most of plant lineages on Earth today evolved from the survivors of this event. Madagascar biota is a mix of ancient taxa with Gondwanan origins that survived the Cretaceous extinction event, and young taxa that arrived there via dispersals. This project will focus on the plant families Podocarpaceae and Winteraceae of Madagascar, two families with long evolutionary histories, and provide new data and insights into the diversity changes of vegetation in northwest Madagascar from the Cretaceous when dinosaurs still roamed this continent until present.
The project has four main objectives:
For further publications by Sylvain Razafimandimbison: DIVA