Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the high levels of plant diversity in the
Neotropics today, but little is known about diversification patterns of Neotropical floras
through geological time. Here, we present the longest time series compiled for palynological
plant diversity of the Neotropics (15 stratigraphic sections, 1530 samples, 1411
morphospecies, and 287,736 occurrences) from the Paleocene to the early Miocene (65 to
20 million years ago) in central Colombia and western Venezuela. The record shows a low …