The tropical stone oaks (Lithocarpus) represent a major diversification in the globally dominant beech or oak family (Fagaceae). Confined to East Asia, two centers of biodiversity exist: one in Indochina and one on the island of Borneo. These trees dominate the tropical forests of Indochina but disappear quickly at the boundary between the subtropical and temperate climatic zones and in the equatorial rainforests, they are largely confined to the hill and upland areas. They produce acorns, occasionally almost identical to temperate oaks but with a much larger variation in fruit and seed morphology.
These trees have several ecological and evolutionary properties which make them a very good ‘model organism’ for the historical biogeography and diversification of the Southeast Asian forests. We are using several different kinds of data to investigate the group.
