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The goals of this study were to reconstruct the phylogeny of Prunus subgenus Laurocerasus section Mesopygeum and to provide a preliminary assessment of its spatio‐temporal diversification in the Malesian region. We inferred the phylogeny using nuclear ITS and ETS and plastid psbA‐trnH, rps16, rpl16, and trnC‐petN sequences. Our analyses support the monophyly of sect. Mesopygeum. Within sect. Mesopygeum, we identified four main subclades: (i) Prunus lancilimba from continental Asia; (ii) Prunus ruthii from Malay Peninsula; (iii) a subclade comprising species from areas centered on the Sunda shelf and also a few species from continental Asia and Wallacea; and (iv) a subclade composed of species from areas of the Sahul shelf, with a small number of taxa also from areas of the Sunda shelf, continental Asia, and the Philippines. We estimated that sect. Mesopygeum originated in continental Asia at c. 44.71 Mya (95% HPD: 31.66–46.90). Nine dispersals between major geographic areas were inferred. From continental Asia, three and two dispersals were inferred to the Sunda shelf and the Sahul shelf in the mid‐Oligocene, respectively. Two dispersals were inferred from the Sahul shelf region to the Sunda shelf in late Oligecene and early Miocene, respectively. There were also two dispersals inferred from the Sunda shelf region, one to the Philippines and one to Wallacea, in the middle and late Miocene, respectively. The diversification in sect. Mesopygeum was likely driven by active geologic events and orogenies in the Neogene in the Malesian region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Malay civet Viverra tangalunga Gray, 1832 is a fairly large viverrid that has a wide distribution in both the Sundaic and Wallacea regions of Southeast Asia. We investigated the genetic diversity of V. tangalunga by analysing the mitochondrial DNA of 81 individuals throughout its range in order to elucidate the evolutionary history of this species and to test the hypotheses of natural dispersal and/or potential human introductions to some islands and regions. Our phylogenetic analyses revealed that V. tangalunga has a low matrilinear genetic diversity and is poorly structured geographically. Borneo is likely to have served as the ancestral population source from which animals dispersed during the Pleistocene. Viverra tangalunga could have naturally dispersed to Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Belitung, and also to several other Sunda Islands ( Bangka, Lingga, and Bintang in the Rhio Archipelago), and to Palawan, although there is possible evidence that humans introduced V. tangalunga to the latter islands. Our results strongly suggested that V. tangalunga was transported by humans across Wallace's Line to Sulawesi and the Moluccas, but also to the Philippines and the Natuna Islands. Our study has shown that human-mediated dispersal can be an important factor in understanding the distribution of some species in this region. © 2014 The Linnean Society of London [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]