Do soil and climate properties drive biogeography of the Australian proteaceae

Aims The Proteaceae are a diverse family of approximately 80 genera and 1700 species with a mostly southern-hemisphere distribution. While distributional patterns of various subsets of the Proteaceae have been studied, no quantitative continental-scale study of species-level spatial biodiversity patterns of the Australian Proteaceae has been conducted. The aim of this study is to identify and examine patterns of distribution, diversity and endemism for the Proteaceae (at family, genera and species levels) of continental Australia and to investigate the environmental drivers for the observed patterns.