Editing Oak (section)

== Distribution ==

[[File:Quercus Global Distribution.svg|thumb|upright=2| Global distribution of ''Quercus''. The New and Old World parts are mostly separate [[clade]]s.{{efn|The New World sections are ''Protobalanus'', ''Lobatae'', ''Ponticae'', ''Quercus'', and ''Virentes''. Old World sections are ''Cerris'', ''Ilex'' and ''Cyclobalanopsis''.}} Red: North American.{{efn|The North American sections are ''Protobalanus'', ''Lobatae'', ''Ponticae'', ''Quercus'', and ''Virentes''.}} Pink: Central American.{{efn|The Central American sections are ''Virentes'', ''Quercus'' and ''Lobatae''}} Yellow: European.{{efn|The European sections are ''Quercus'', ''Cerris'' and ''Ilex''.}} Green: West/Central Asian.{{efn|The West/Central Asian sections are ''Ponticae'', ''Quercus'', ''Cerris'' and ''Ilex''.}} Turquoise: Southeast Asian.{{efn|The Southeast Asian sections are ''Quercus'', ''Cyclobalanopsis'', ''Cerris'' and ''Ilex''.}} Blue: East Asian.{{efn|The East Asian sections are ''Quercus'', ''Cerris'', ''Ilex'' and ''Cyclobalanopsis''.}}<ref name="Liu Yang Tian Yang 2023"/> See Phylogeny chapter/tree for sections.{{what|reason=Where would one find this?|date=January 2025}}]]

The genus ''Quercus'' is native to the Northern Hemisphere and includes [[deciduous]] and [[evergreen]] species extending from [[cool temperate]] to [[tropical]] latitudes in the [[Americas]], Asia, Europe, and North Africa. North America has the largest number of oak species, with approximately 160 species in Mexico, of which 109 are endemic, and about 90 in the United States. The second greatest area of oak diversity is China, with approximately 100 species.<ref>Hogan, C. Michael (2012) [http://www.eoearth.org/article/Oak "Oak"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130523173442/http://www.eoearth.org/article/Oak |date=23 May 2013 }}. ed. Arthur Dawson. ''Encyclopedia of Earth''. National Council for Science and the Environment. Washington DC</ref>

In the Americas, ''Quercus'' is widespread from [[Vancouver]] and [[Nova Scotia]] in the south of Canada, south to [[Mexico]] and across the whole of the eastern United States. It is present in a small area of the west of [[Cuba]]; in [[Mesoamerica]] it occurs mainly above {{convert|1,000|m}}.<ref name="Nixon 2006"/> The genus crossed the [[isthmus of Panama]] when the northern and southern continents came together<ref name="Hooghiemstra 2006">{{cite book |last=Hooghiemstra |first=H. |chapter=Immigration of Oak into Northern South America: A Paleo-Ecological Document |title=Ecology and conservation of neotropical montane oak forests |publisher=Springer |year=2006 |pages=17–28 |chapter-url=}}</ref> and is present as one species, ''Q.&nbsp;humboldtii'', above 1,000&nbsp;metres in Colombia.<ref name="Nixon 2006">{{cite book |last=Nixon |first=Kevin C. |chapter=Global and neotropical distribution and diversity of oak (genus ''Quercus'') and oak forests |title=Ecology and conservation of neotropical montane oak forests |publisher=Springer |year=2006 |pages=3–13 |chapter-url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226843540}}</ref> The oaks of North America are of many sections (''Protobalanus'', ''Lobatae'', ''Ponticae'', ''Quercus'', and ''Virentes'') along with related genera such as ''Notholithocarpus''.<ref name="Liu Yang Tian Yang 2023"/>

In the Old World, oaks of section ''Quercus'' extend across the whole of Europe including European Russia apart from the far north, and north Africa (north of the Sahara) from Morocco to Libya. In Mediterranean Europe, they are joined by oaks of the sections ''Cerris'' and ''Ilex'', which extend across Turkey, the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan'','' while section ''Ponticae'' is endemic to the western Caucasus in [[Turkey]] and [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]]. Oaks of section ''Cyclobalanopsis'' extend in a narrow belt along the Himalayas to cover mainland and island Southeast Asia as far as [[Sumatra]], [[Java]], [[Borneo]], and [[Palawan]].<ref name=powo/><ref>{{cite journal |last=Jablonski |first=Eike |title=Among the Oaks of Borneo and Java |journal=International Oaks |issue=10, Spring 2000 |date=2000 |url=http://www.internationaloaksociety.org/content/international-oaks-no-10-2000}}</ref> Finally, oaks of multiple sections (''Cyclobalanopsis'', ''Ilex'', ''Cerris'', ''Quercus'' and related genera like ''Lithocarpus'' and ''Castanopsis'') extend across east Asia including China, Korea, and Japan.<ref name="Liu Yang Tian Yang 2023">{{citation |last1=Liu |first1=Shuiyin |last2=Yang |first2=Yingying |last3=Tian |first3=Qin |last4=Yang |first4=Zhiyun |last5=Li |first5=Shufeng |last6=Valdes |first6=Paul J. |last7=Farnsworth |first7=Alex |last8=Kates |first8=Heather R. |last9=Siniscalchi |first9=Carolina M. |last10=Guralnick |first10=Robert P. |last11=Soltis |first11=Douglas E. |last12=Soltis |first12=Pamela S. |last13=Stull |first13=Gregory W. |last14=Folk |first14=Ryan A. |last15=Yi |first15=Tingshuang |display-authors=3 |title=Phylogenomic Analyses Reveal Widespread Gene Flow During the Early Radiation of Oaks and Relatives (Fagaceae: Quercoideae) |publisher=Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory |date=2023-04-28 |doi=10.1101/2023.04.25.538215 |s2cid=258428911 }}</ref>