Environmental filtering and dispersal history limit plant distributions and affect biogeographical patterns, but how their relative importance varies across evolutionary timescales is unresolved. Phylogenetic beta diversity quantifies dissimilarity in evolutionary relatedness among assemblages and might help resolve the ecological and biogeographical mechanisms structuring biodiversity. Here, we examined the effects of environmental dissimilarity and geographical distance on phylogenetic and taxonomic turnover for ~270,000 seed plant species globally and across evolutionary timescales. We calculated past and present dispersal barriers using palaeogeographical reconstructions and calculated geographical linear and least-cost distances, accounting for dispersal over water, mountains or areas with unsuitable climates. Environmental dissimilarity and geographical distance jointly explained most of the deviance in taxonomic (up to 86.4%) and phylogenetic turnover (65.6%). While environmental dissimilarity consistently showed strongly positive effects, the effect of geographical distance on phylogenetic turnover was less pronounced further back in evolutionary time. Past physiogeographical barriers explained a relatively low amount of the variation across all timescales, with a slight peak at intermediate timescales (20-50 Myr BP). Our results suggest that while old lineages have generally dispersed widely, the imprint of environmental filtering on range expansion persists, providing insights into biogeographical and evolutionary processes underlying global biodiversity patterns.

Biodiversity Macroecology and Biogeography University of Göttingen Göttingen Germany

Campus Institute Data Science Göttingen Germany

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

Data Observatory Foundation Santiago Chile

Department of Biodiversity Ecology and Evolution Faculty of Biological Sciences Complutense University of Madrid Madrid Spain

Department of Biological Sciences University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta Canada

Department of Ecology Faculty of Science Charles University Prague Czech Republic

Department of Evolution Ecology and Behaviour Institute of Infection Veterinary and Ecological Sciences University of Liverpool Liverpool UK

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

Division of Bioinvasions Global Change and Macroecology University Vienna Vienna Austria

Ecology Department of Biology University of Konstanz Konstanz Germany

GEMA Center for Genomics Ecology and Environment Universidad Mayor Santiago Chile

German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle Jena Leipzig Leipzig Germany

Naturalis Biodiversity Center Leiden the Netherlands

School of Biological Sciences University of Canterbury Christchurch New Zealand

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

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