title: Paleo-Antarctic rainforest into the modern Old World tropics: the rich past and threatened future of the "southern wet forest survivors".
abstract: •
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Have Gondwanan rainforest floral associations survived? Where do they occur today? Have they survived continuously in particular locations? How significant is their living floristic signal? We revisit these classic questions in light of significant recent increases in relevant paleobotanical data.•
  
  
  METHODS
  We traced the extinction and persistence of lineages and associations through the past across four now separated regions-Australia, New Zealand, Patagonia, and Antarctica-using fossil occurrence data from 63 well-dated Gondwanan rainforest sites and 396 constituent taxa. Fossil sites were allocated to four age groups: Cretaceous, Paleocene-Eocene, Neogene plus Oligocene, and Pleistocene. We compared the modern and ancient distributions of lineages represented in the fossil record to see if dissimilarity increased with time. We quantified similarity-dissimilarity of composition and taxonomic structure among fossil assemblages, and between fossil and modern assemblages.•
  
  
  RESULTS
  Strong similarities between ancient Patagonia and Australia confirmed shared Gondwanan rainforest history, but more of the lineages persisted in Australia. Samples of ancient Australia grouped with the extant floras of Australia, New Guinea, New Caledonia, Fiji, and Mt. Kinabalu. Decreasing similarity through time among the regional floras of Antarctica, Patagonia, New Zealand, and southern Australia reflects multiple extinction events.•
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Gondwanan rainforest lineages contribute significantly to modern rainforest community assembly and often co-occur in widely separated assemblages far from their early fossil records. Understanding how and where lineages from ancient Gondwanan assemblages co-occur today has implications for the conservation of global rainforest vegetation, including in the Old World tropics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde 2113, Sydney, Australia National Herbarium of NSW, Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, Mrs Macquaries Road, Sydney 2000, Australia.
authors.forename: Robert M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Kooyman
authors.affiliation: Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wilf
authors.affiliation: Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, CONICET, División Paleobotánica, Av. Ángel Gallardo 470, C1405DJR Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: Viviana D
authors.initials: VD
authors.lastname: Barreda
authors.affiliation: School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Benham Bldg DX 650 312, University of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
authors.forename: Raymond J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Carpenter
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 55 Hobart, 7001 Tasmania, Australia.
authors.forename: Gregory J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Jordan
authors.affiliation: School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne 3010, Australia.
authors.forename: J M Kale
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Sniderman
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde 2113, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.affiliation: School of Biological Sciences, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 55 Hobart, 7001 Tasmania, Australia.
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Brodribb
authors.affiliation: Australian Tropical Herbarium, School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Cairns, Australia.
authors.forename: Darren
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Crayn
authors.affiliation: Australian Tropical Herbarium, School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Cairns, Australia.
authors.forename: Taylor S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Feild
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecosystem Science, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Kensington 2052, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: Shawn W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Laffan
authors.affiliation: School of Science, University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Christopher H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Lusk
authors.affiliation: National Herbarium of NSW, Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, Mrs Macquaries Road, Sydney 2000, Australia.
authors.forename: Maurizio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rossetto
authors.affiliation: National Herbarium of NSW, Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, Mrs Macquaries Road, Sydney 2000, Australia.
authors.forename: Peter H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Weston
mesh_terms: D000864:Antarctic Regions; D044362:Australasia; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005580:Fossils; D010802:Phylogeny; D058974:Phylogeography; D010944:Plants / Q000235:genetics*; D065947:Rainforest; D014329:Tropical Climate
keywords: Antarctica; Australia; Gondwana; New Zealand; Old World tropics; Patagonia; assemblage; biogeography; paleobotany; rainforest