Laurus - Ecology

Ecology

The genus come from a few relict species living in temperate areas and more distributed in the Tertiary. The main centers are found inhabiting montane forests or coastal forest in low-altitude. Some species have adapted to more extreme conditions but mostly depending on favorable soil edaphic conditions, as presence of aquifers, groundwater periodic flows, etc.

The patterns of speciation in the Lauraceae family, where laurus genus belong, indicate that since the onset of aridification on the continents 15 million years ago, rainforest diversified in species numbers with the majority of species the product of vicariance. One of the products of aridification is the current island like archipelagos of rainforests along the planet. The fragmentation of once more continuous rainforest facilitated isolation of populations and this likely caused the increase in the rate of speciation as found in the Lauraceae.

Laurus genus responded to favourable climatic periods and expanded across the available habitat, occur as opportunistic species across wide distribution with close relatives and few species, indicating the recent divergence of this species. The extant laurel species of this group are relatively young.

The laurus genus features have named many botanical species that are having similar foliage to the Laurus due to convergent evolution. Plants of the laurel forests must adapt to high rainfall and humidity. The trees adapted by developing leaves that repel water. Lauroid leaves are characterized by a generous layer of wax, making them glossy in appearance, and narrow, pointed oval in shape with an apical mucro, or 'drip tip', which permit the leaves to shed water despite the humidity, allowing perspiration and respiration from plant. The scientific names laurina, laurifolia, laurophylla, lauriformis, and lauroides are often used to name species of other plant families that resemble the Laurus genus and the Lauraceae family. Furthermore, it is common that the dispersal of seeds in many laurel forest species is due to birds that swallow them, so also the fruit and berries are often similar to attract birds. Although not closely related to Lauraceae family despite the similarity, Laurelia genus in southern hemisphere, in the family Atherospermataceae is equivalent to this of Laurus. The three laurel species in the genus Laurus are dispersed by birds columbiform, mainly.