Assessing the distribution of geographically restricted and evolutionarily unique species and their underlying drivers is key to understanding biogeographical processes and critical for global conservation prioritization. Here, we quantified the geographic distribution and drivers of phylogenetic endemism for ~320,000 seed plants worldwide and identified centers and drivers of evolutionarily young (neoendemism) and evolutionarily old endemism (paleoendemism). Tropical and subtropical islands as well as tropical mountain regions displayed the world's highest phylogenetic endemism. Most tropical rainforest regions emerged as centers of paleoendemism, while most Mediterranean-climate regions showed high neoendemism. Centers where high neo- and paleoendemism coincide emerged on some oceanic and continental fragment islands, in Mediterranean-climate regions and parts of the Irano-Turanian floristic region. Global variation in phylogenetic endemism was well explained by a combination of past and present environmental factors (79.8 to 87.7% of variance explained) and most strongly related to environmental heterogeneity. Also, warm and wet climates, geographic isolation, and long-term climatic stability emerged as key drivers of phylogenetic endemism. Neo- and paleoendemism were jointly explained by climatic and geological history. Long-term climatic stability promoted the persistence of paleoendemics, while the isolation of oceanic islands and their unique geological histories promoted neoendemism. Mountainous regions promoted both neo- and paleoendemism, reflecting both diversification and persistence over time. Our study provides insights into the evolutionary underpinnings of biogeographical patterns in seed plants and identifies the areas on Earth with the highest evolutionary and biogeographical uniqueness-key information for setting global conservation priorities.

Biodiversity Macroecology and Biogeography University of Göttingen Göttingen 37077 Germany

Campus Institute Data Science Göttingen 37077 Germany

Centre of Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Use University of Göttingen Göttingen 37077 Germany

Czech Academy of Sciences Institute of Botany Department of Invasion Ecology Průhonice 252 43 Czech Republic

Department of Biosciences Durham University Durham DH1 3LE United Kingdom

Department of Ecology Faculty of Science Charles University Prague 128 44 Czech Republic

Division of Bioinvasions Global Change and Macroecology University Vienna Vienna 1030 Austria

Ecology Department of Biology University of Konstanz Konstanz 78464 Germany

German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle Jena Leipzig Leipzig 04103 Germany

School of Natural Sciences Macquarie University Sydney NSW 2109 Australia

Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Taizhou University Taizhou 318000 China

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