How a fungal order <i>Hymenochaetales</i> diversified in China inferred from its spatiotemporal pattern

<p>Spatiotemporal pattern of biodiversity is an indicator of evolutionary history, and provides crucial information for recognizing evolutionary process of life on the Earth over time and space. Here, we for the first time comprehensively analyze macrofungal spatiotemporal pattern in China at the order level taking <i>Hymenochaetales</i> as the exemplar. A total of <styled-content style-type="number">3950</styled-content> occurrence records from all 490 known species in China are included, and the results indicate that species richness, weighted species endemism, phylogenetic diversity and phylogenetic endemism of <i>Hymenochaetales</i> were generally higher in southern China with lower latitudes. Accordingly, the predicted current highly suitable habitats for <i>Hymenochaetales</i> concentrated in the central to southern China, where the lineages of <i>Hymenochaetales</i> were older than those in habitats with other suitability levels. The Chinese ancestor of <i>Hymenochaetales</i> was evaluated to originate 201.63 million years ago with two ancient divergence hotspots. Since the origination, <i>Hymenochaetales</i> in southeastern China intensively diversified, while the other ancient divergence hotspot near Tianshan Mountains in the northwest of northwestern China underwent much less diversification. The differentiated fate of <i>Hymenochaetales</i> between these two ancient divergence hotspots was correlated with local temperature and host plant density. In summary, the current study revealed the diversification scenario of <i>Hymenochaetales</i> in China, and provided a leading demonstration for macrofungal macroevolution.</p>