Dispersal enables species to track climate change by facilitating range shifts and colonization, yet successful post-dispersal establishment is often constrained by ecological niche mismatches. The mechanisms underlying this constraint remain poorly understood due to a lack of molecular evidence, limiting our ability to predict climate-induced range dynamics. Here, we integrate biogeographic analysis with macroecological insights to investigate how ecology shapes genomic divergence, local adaptation, and climate resilience in Debregeasia orientalis C. J. Chen, a dominant riparian shrub distributed across multiple biodiversity hotspots in southwestern China. Based on whole genome sequencing data from 332 individuals, we identify three genetically distinct groups: two diverged during the early Last Glacial period, and one originated through hybridization more recently. Despite both historical and ongoing opportunities for gene flow, strong genetic differentiation persists among the three groups. This differentiation is supported by clear niche divergence among the three groups and by genomic signatures of local adaptation, including selective sweeps related to hypoxia tolerance, thermal adaptation, and anthropogenic pressures. Together, these findings indicate that post-dispersal niche filtering limits the merging of these lineages. Genomic offset projections reveal asymmetric vulnerabilities to future climate scenarios, with one lineage particularly maladapted under projected shifts. These findings highlight niche-driven adaptation as a primary determinant of both historical divergence and contemporary resilience. Collectively, this study presents a framework linking post-dispersal ecological filtering to long-term genomic divergence, offering new insights into how niche filtering maintains genetic structure under rapid environmental change.

Tropical forests, renowned for their exceptional biodiversity, often thrive despite inherently low soil phosphorus (P) availability. However, a comprehensive synthesis of the mechanisms that facilitate the coexistence of diverse species, and how these mechanisms respond to P addition, remains poorly understood. This review consolidates research findings on how tropical forest biodiversity is sustained under low P conditions, how P addition influences the overall biodiversity system, identifies research gaps, and suggests future directions. The relationship between P and biodiversity is complex: while P-limited forests support high diversity, P addition may lead to species disappearance, raising the question of why some forests that maintain high species diversity under P limitation continue to do so, while others experience a decline in diversity following P addition. Despite P limitation, forests can support high species diversity through adaptive strategies such as resource partitioning and P-use efficiency, which enable diverse communities to flourish. In low-P environments, species conserve P through resorption from older tissues and allocation to leaves, promoting photosynthesis and growth. These species exhibit lower specific leaf area and higher leaf dry matter content. While functional diversity is constrained, species diversity remains high as species adopt similar strategies. Specialized root traits, including finer roots and mycorrhizal symbioses, facilitate P uptake in low-P soils. However, P addition may lead to competitive exclusion, with species adapted to P-rich conditions outcompeting low-P specialists. Some species may dominate early successional stages by rapidly utilizing available P, suppressing other species, and reducing biodiversity over time. Anthropogenic P additions, such as agricultural fertilization and erosion, can intensify this effect, further decreasing species diversity and altering community composition, including fauna and microbial components of the forest. Due to the complexity and variability of tropical environments, critical knowledge gaps remain in understanding how diverse forest components, soil organisms, and environmental conditions interact with P addition, particularly at local and regional scales. Long-term studies, especially in less accessible or underfunded tropical regions, are essential to improve understanding of species interactions, resource partitioning, and biodiversity functioning under P-limitation.

Insect biogeography is poorly documented globally, particularly in the tropics. Recent intensive research in tropical Asia, combined with increasingly available records from citizen science, provides an opportunity to map the distributions of tropical Asian butterflies. We compiled a dataset of 730,190 occurrences of 3,752 tropical Asian butterfly species by aggregating records from GBIF (651,285 records), published literature (27,217), published databases (37,695), and unpublished data (13,993). Here, we present this dataset and single-species distribution maps of 1,576 species. Using these maps, along with records of the 2,176 remaining species, we identified areas of limited sampling (e.g., Myanmar and New Guinea) and predicted areas of high diversity (Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo). This dataset can be leveraged for a range of studies on Asian and tropical butterflies, including 1) species biogeography, 2) sampling prioritization to fill gaps, 3) biodiversity hotspot mapping, and 4) conservation evaluation and planning. We encourage the continued development of this dataset and the associated code as a tool for the conservation of tropical Asian insects.

Accurate species delineation is crucial for biodiversity conservation. The genus Firmiana Marsili (Malvaceae) comprises deciduous trees and shrubs, many of which are rare and endangered in China, underscoring the urgent need for effective conservation measures. However, morphological similarities among closely related Firmiana species complicate taxonomic identification, and traditional morphology-based approaches are often insufficient for taxa with complicated evolutionary histories. To address this, we conducted genome skimming on 62 Firmiana samples representing all 10 recognized Chinese species and two unidentified taxa, assembling plastome and nuclear ribosomal DNA sequences. We evaluated the effectiveness of super-barcodes (plastid genomes and nrDNA), plastid hyper-variable barcodes, and four universal barcodes. Our results show that nrITS exhibited the highest discriminatory power, successfully identifying all 10 recognized Firmiana species, and is thus recommended as the primary barcode for the genus. In addition, two cryptic lineages were discovered within the Firmiana major complex. These results provide critical insights for the conservation, management, and sustainable use of endangered Firmiana species. This study underscores the urgent need to revise species boundaries within the F. major complex, and highlights the potential of DNA barcoding as an efficient tool for species identification and conservation of the genus Firmiana. (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic) (Firmiana Marsili) (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)DNA(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)62(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)DNA (nrDNA) (sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic) ((sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)DNA) ,(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)DNA(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic) (nrITS) (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic) (F. major) (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic),(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)DNA(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic).

Many studies have investigated plant-pathogen interactions by testing whether fungicides affect plant survival, growth, biomass, and/or diversity. Here, we synthesize these studies using a global meta-analysis of 369 experiments from 62 papers that compared plants treated with fungicide to untreated controls. Overall, fungicide increased the survival of native plant species and community biomass but decreased diversity, mirroring the effects of fencing out vertebrate herbivores. There was no overall effect on plant growth. However, analyses of subsets of the data revealed a more varied and complex picture, with few consistent results. Strong geographical biases in sampling and small sample sizes for many combinations of variables make it difficult to distinguish between alternative explanations for this variation in fungicide effects. The results, overall, are largely consistent with a role for fungal pathogens in the maintenance of community diversity, but not with the latitudinal biotic interaction hypothesis. Future studies should aim to fill the gaps in the geographical spread of studies, standardize the methods as far as possible, and use molecular techniques to characterize the impacts of fungicide treatments on both target and nontarget organisms.

Ecological restoration has traditionally had a bottom-up focus on plants and vegetation, but rewilding has been the opposite, and the impacts of rewilding carnivores and large herbivores on plant species and vegetation are largely unknown. The aim of this perspective, therefore, is to clarify what rewilding means for plants and vegetation, to assess progress in achieving this, to identify research needs and to make recommendations for rewilding practice. Land-use legacies and dispersal limitation are major challenges for plant rewilding, and the slowness of vegetation recovery makes success hard to evaluate on a human timescale. On the other hand, wild vegetation develops spontaneously wherever human pressures are released, regardless of the state of the site. For plant conservation, the key issue is ensuring that all plant species that can be restored are present, including rare and threatened species. Long-term species-level monitoring and, where necessary, continued intervention should be part of all projects that aim to rewild plants and vegetation.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework aims to conserve 30% of land globally by 2030 using protected areas (PAs) and 'other effective area-based conservation measures' (OECMs). China plans to expand PAs to 18% of the land area. An additional 12% can be designated as OECMs within the ecological protection red lines.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has greatly contributed to the global expansion of infrastructure projects, and managing the impacts of its projects on biodiversity is critical to global biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. We rated BRI projects (691) based on their potential effect on threatened species and important biodiversity areas (protected areas and key biodiversity areas) derived from spatial analyses. Projects were categorized into three levels of risk to biodiversity: high (red), medium (yellow), and low (green). We also compared the impacts and risks of China-funded BRI projects with projects funded by multilateral development banks (MDBs). The potential impacts of BRI projects on biodiversity are high. An average of seven threatened vertebrates would potentially be affected in the average impact zone of every project, and 7.7% of the average impact zones of a project overlapped important biodiversity areas. Thus, more than half of BRI projects were rated red or yellow. Compared with MDB-funded projects, China-funded BRI projects presented similar risks to important biodiversity areas but presented higher risks to threatened species, highlighting the importance of managing the impacts and risks of BRI projects on species. We recommend that our spatially informed database and risk assessment method be adopted by the Chinese government to assist risk management of BRI projects and that biodiversity-inclusive spatial planning be adopted by countries with BRI projects to reconcile conservation and development.

Investigating the evolutionary history and species diversification patterns in hyperdiverse lineages is essential for understanding how species diversity accumulates and how floras assemble historically across diverse regions. A large angiosperm family, Apocynaceae, exhibited remarkable diversity in functional traits including growth form, fruit types, and pollen aggregation, which may have a substantial impact on species diversification rates. However, the lack of a robust and well dated phylogeny has hindered our understanding of Apocynaceae diversification. To address this gap, we reconstructed a robust phylogeny covering 22 of 25 tribes using plastome sequences, then employed this framework to estimate divergence times, analyze diversification patterns, and investigate associations between species diversification and functional traits. The plastome phylogenies received strong nodal support across most branches. Among higher taxonomic groupings, three subfamilies (Asclepiadoideae, Secamonoideae, and Periplocoideae) were monophyletic. At the tribal levels, 19 tribes were strongly supported as monophyletic except Melodineae, Willughbeieae, and Vinceae. Additionally, five genera (Vincetoxicum, Cynanchum, Hoya, Marsdenia, and Aganosma) were identified as nonmonophyletic. Our analyses revealed that Apocynaceae originated in the paleotropics during the middle Late Cretaceous. Integrating binary state speciation and extinction (BiSSE), hidden state speciation and extinction (HiSSE), and fast, intuitive state-dependent speciation-extinction (FiSSE) analyses, we found that species with pollinia had a higher speciation rate than those without. Dry-fruited species had a higher speciation rate than those with fleshy fruits. Furthermore, Bayesian analysis of macro-evolutionary mixtures (BAMM) detected a diversification rate increase coinciding with the evolution of pollinia with clip-type attachment mechanisms in the subfamily Asclepiadoideae. Herbs had the highest speciation rate, followed by climbers and self-supporting species. Our findings contribute to understanding the historical assembly of floras in tropical and subtropical Asia.

Conservation programs for plant species with extremely small populations (PSESP) have been successfully implemented for several decades in China. Here we highlight how their inclusion in several national conservation policies helps meet targets of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) and show how lessons from these programs can be applied more widely.

Tropical forests constitute the world's largest biomass carbon pool and are important global reservoirs of biodiversity, yet they are being increasingly degraded by anthropogenic activities. Evidence from American tropical forests suggests that forest disturbance and climate change result in increased liana abundance and biomass, but data are still lacking from African and Asian forests. An increasing abundance of lianas may affect forest ecosystem services, which is concerning as these services are poorly understood. Recognizing the urgent need to evaluate how increases in lianas could affect local and regional carbon, nutrient, and water cycles, 35 scientists (Fig. 1), at different career stages, from 14 countries working across Africa, America, and Asia, convened at the 1st International Workshop on Liana Forest Ecology held at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG), China, 12–16 October 2023. With the focus 'From life to afterlife: liana proliferation and its consequences for carbon and water cycling', the workshop discussed how carbon, nutrient, and water cycles are affected by: (1) drivers of liana distribution and demography; (2) hydraulics of lianas vs trees; (3) lives of lianas; and, (4) afterlives of lianas (Fig. 2). Here, we provide a summary of our discussions. S. A. Schnitzer (Marquette University, USA), R. T. Corlett (Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, China), and B. Ofosu-Bamfo (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana) provided overviews of liana research in the Americas, Asia, and Africa, respectively. Most quantitative research has occurred in the Americas, but there is increasing effort in other continents. S.A. Schnitzer highlighted recent work, which shows that lianas reach high density and diversity in tree fall gaps in the tropics and can suppress trees and other growth forms. He noted that information on liana demography using established sampling protocols is critical to reveal the age and size classes where lianas are thriving, and provides a way to compare the potential causes of liana increases among sites. Such censuses must be further expanded to sites in Africa, Australia, and Asia. In the latter region, a combination of such censuses with in-depth studies will also contribute to better insights into the ecology of rattans, a diverse and commercially important group of climbing palms (R. T. Corlett). Understanding hydraulic differences between trees and lianas is critical to explaining both their competitive interactions and their impacts on soil–water resources. Lianas have, on average, wider vessel diameters and greater lengths than trees, resulting in more efficient hydraulic transport and potentially greater vulnerability to embolism (Smith-Martin et al., 2022). However, studies with refined methods, including X-ray micro-computed tomography, optical vulnerability techniques, and improved bench-top dehydration methods to assess dehydration-induced embolism, have shown that lianas are more resistant to embolisms than previously thought (Chen et al., 2021; Smith-Martin et al., 2022; K. Cao, Guangxi University, China). This may be because of the wider distribution of xylem vessel diameters in lianas compared with trees: small vessels can continue to transport water even after larger vessels have been embolized (Smith-Martin et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2023). There was debate during the workshop about the possible mechanisms, leading to the conclusion that the refilling of embolized vessels is not supported by concrete evidence. C.M. Smith-Martin (University of Minnesota, USA) suggested that more comparative studies on xylem anatomy, examining pit membrane thickness and xylem vessel connectivity, are needed to establish whether large vessels are isolated from the smaller vessels in lianas, as this would prevent the propagation of embolisms, with implications for water cycling. Lianas perform better than trees during seasonal drought, with higher photosynthetic rates, fewer negative predawn leaf water potentials, and higher growth rates than trees (Schnitzer & van der Heijden, 2019; Smith-Martin et al., 2019). C.M. Smith-Martin pointed out that, although this difference was previously ascribed to lianas having deeper roots than trees, stable isotopic studies revealed deep or shallow water use by lianas relative to trees. Meanwhile, excavation studies reported no difference in rooting depth among juvenile lianas and trees, but a greater depth of mature trees than lianas (Smith-Martin et al., 2019, 2020). C.M. Smith-Martin also noted that rooting depth is likely species- and site-specific, so further root excavation studies are needed. If lianas are not accessing deeper sources of water, then they must rely on other mechanisms to outperform trees during seasonal drought. Potential explanations include that lianas lower their leaf turgor loss point during the dry season to increase drought resistance (S.A. Schnitzer, Marquette University, USA), and/or have peak photosynthetic rates early in the morning when vapor pressure deficit is low (Chen et al., 2017). K. Tomlinson (Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, China) suggested that controlled dry-down experiments would yield critical data on leaf physiological responses of lianas and trees to soil drying. Talks on seed, seedling, and adult liana diversity emphasized that studies to date typically focused on few species, whereas the rare examples of community assessment show the great diversity of liana life forms. Those analyses suggest that lianas should not be treated as a single functional type when understanding forest community dynamics. M. Roeder (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany) reported a large range of seed traits and germination requirements in an Amazonian forest community. She also reported on seedling traits, which were related to remarkable differences in the life histories of lianas from different forest types. Under a closed canopy primary forest, lianas can form free-standing seedling or sapling banks (often by clonal vegetative reproduction). In secondary forests, with increased light availability, liana vegetative regeneration increases in importance and growth. Associated traits were more heterogenous than in primary forests. M. Roeder advocated expanding trait-based liana community analyses to generate a deeper understanding of the functional ecology of lianas across forest types, further pointing out that biometric analyses of seeds can provide a large amount of information without the need for resource-intensive germination tests. G. Zotz (Carl von Ossietzky University, Germany) advocated a more holistic approach to growth forms. He noted that herbaceous vines are understudied, and further concluded that ecologists should avoid treating 'woody lianas', 'herbaceous vines', and 'epiphytes' as homogenous functional groups, a sentiment that has been put forward elsewhere (e.g. Meunier et al., 2021; Schnitzer & Carson, 2023). Liana reproductive phenology is important for plant and animal community dynamics, as flowers and fruits are important animal food resources. Liana reproductive phenology ranges from seasonal to aseasonal depending on dry season length; in seasonal environments with asynchrony in reproductive phenology between trees and lianas, lianas may provide critical fallback resources for animals. Unfortunately, there are few studies on liana phenology and they are mostly from the American tropics; most do not quantify flower and fruit resources over time, which is critical to understanding their contribution to ecosystem functions and services. At the meeting, two recent studies from Asia and Africa were reported. In an Asian seasonal forest, peak flowering coincided in the late dry season between trees and lianas, but lianas produced more flowers earlier in the dry season (T.C. Ling, Chiang Mai University, Thailand), which contrasts with asynchrony between the growth forms in seasonal forests in Mexico (Cortés-Flores et al., 2017). In two African seasonal forests, liana flowering peaked twice per year in the wetter forest and only once in the drier forest, corresponding with the rainfall patterns of each forest (B. Ofosu-Bamfo). Remote sensing and on-site cameras may rapidly increase the spatial and temporal coverage of phenological studies (e.g. Kaçamak et al., 2022), allowing future research to establish how abiotic (e.g. rainfall, seasonality) and biotic factors (e.g. phylogeny and pollinator guilds) influence liana phenology. The contributions to carbon and nutrient cycling of litter generated from lianas vs trees remain poorly documented. M. Roeder highlighted the lack of community-level studies on litterfall and decomposition of lianas vs trees and presented evidence (including higher leaf nitrogen content) that leaves of lianas consistently decompose faster than trees in a multi-community study (Roeder et al., 2022). This corresponded with experimental evidence from temperate species reported by H. Cornelissen (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands). J. Zuo (Wuhan Botanical Garden, China) suggested that differences in litter quality sourced from lianas and trees offer an opportunity to test some ecological hypotheses such as mixture effect mechanisms. D. Schaefer (Kunming Institute of Botany, China) pointed out that wood and leaf decomposition studies, in general, have been performed separately, and that future decomposition studies should include leaf and wood litter mixtures. Liana wood decomposition is thought to be enhanced by its low wood density, and large-diameter and long xylem vessels allowing fungal hyphae to proliferate and invertebrates to invade. Due to differences in liana woody debris nutrient content compared with trees, the two growth forms could host different communities of invertebrate decomposers. G.G.O. Dossa (Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, China) expected invertebrate contribution to liana woody debris decomposition to be higher in magnitude compared with tree woody debris, and H. Cornelissen proposed that the role of termites should be considered in future studies. Termites are quite selective for food quality; thus, deadwood studies will provide more insights if they include anti-termite cages. Furthermore, since some of the decaying material remains suspended in the forest canopy, studies should quantify this suspended portion of decaying litter and compare ground vs suspended woody debris for (abiotic and biotic contributions to) decomposition (G.G.O. Dossa). The increase in liana density and basal area is one of the major changes now occurring in many tropical forests and was a central theme of the workshop. The potential ramifications of increasing liana density illuminated the need for a deeper understanding of the fundamental ecology of lianas. A more complete understanding of liana hydraulics and underlying traits may be critical to understanding their ability to efficiently move more water from the soil to their sun-exposed leaves. Resolving where lianas access water in the soil profile, the amount of water they take up, and how these vary with climate and soils, remains a priority area of research. Leaf phenology and the afterlives of lianas are clear gaps in our general understanding of the contribution of lianas to ecosystem services and nutrient cycling in forests. Liana stem and leaf properties differ from those of trees, making unique contributions to forest soil dynamics. Thus, the contribution of lianas to decay rates of dead plant matter and their interactions therein with tree-derived deadwood and litter are understudied but potentially important to understanding forest ecology. One key outcome of this workshop is the acknowledgement that insight can be gained by merging analyses of species-level functional traits of wide-ranging lianas and trees, with those of community-level plant and decomposer composition, demography, and matter cycling. This will likely be a key theme to be addressed in a follow-up workshop (potentially in Beijing in 2025). The participants of the workshop are grateful for financial support from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden. In addition, G.G.O.D. was supported by the Yunnan provincial government talents program (E1YN101B01). G.G.O.D. and J.Z. were supported by Open Funding from CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology (22-CAS-TFE-06).

The family Lauraceae is subdivided into six main lineages: Caryodaphnopsideae, Cassytheae, Cryptocaryeae, Hypodaphnideae, Laureae, and Neocinnamomeae. However, phylogenetic relationships among these lineages have been debatable due to incongruence between trees constructed using nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) sequences and chloroplast (cp) genomes. As with cp DNA, the mitochondrial (mt) DNA of most flowering plants is maternally inherited, so the phylogenetic relationships recovered with mt genomes are expected to be consistent with that from cp genomes, rather than nrDNA sequences. The mitogenome of Machilus yunnanensis, with a length of 735,392 bp, has a very different genome size and gene linear order from previously published magnoliid mitogenomes. Phylogenomic reconstructions based on 41 mt genes from 92 Lauraceae mitogenomes resulted in highly supported relationships: sisterhood of the Laureae and a group containing Neocinnamomeae and Caryodaphnopsideae, with Cassytheae being the next sister group, followed by Cryptocaryeae. However, we found significant incongruence among the mitochondrial, chloroplast, and nuclear phylogenies, especially for the species within the Caryodaphnopsideae and Neocinnamomeae lineages. Time-calibrated phylogenetic analyses showed that the split between Caryodaphnopsideae and Neocinnamomeae dated to the later Eocene, around 38.5 Ma, Laureae originated in the Late Cretaceous, around 84.9 Ma, Cassytheae originated in the mid-Cretaceous around 102 Ma, and Cryptocaryeae originated in the Early Cretaceous around 116 Ma. From the Late Cretaceous to the Paleocene, net diversification rates significantly increased across extant clades of major lineages, and both speciation rates and net diversification rates continued steady growth towards the present. The topology obtained here for the first time shows that mt genes can be used to support relationships among lineages of Lauraceae. Our results highlight that both Caryodaphnopsideae and Neocinnamomeae lineages are younger than previously thought, likely first diversifying in the Eocene, and species in the other extant lineages of Lauraceae dates in a long-time span from the Early Cretaceous to the Eocene, and the climate of a period of about 90 million years was relatively warm, while the extant species of Lauraceae then continuously diversified with global cooling from the Eocene to the present day.