The species of
Persea have a disjunct distribution, with about 109
Neotropical species, ranging from
Argentina and
Chile in
South America to
Central America,
Mexico, and the
Caribbean; with two species,
P. indica and
P. barbujana, native to
Madeira and the
Canary Islands off northwest Africa. None of the species are very tolerant of severe winter cold, with the hardiest,
P. lingue, surviving temperatures down to about ; they also require continuously moist soil, and do not tolerate drought. A number of these species are found in forests that face threats of destruction or
deforestation, including
P. lingue in central Chile. The family
Lauraceae was part of the land flora of
Gondwana, and many genera had migrated to South America via
Antarctica over ocean landbridges by the time of the
Paleocene. From South America they spread over most of the continent. When the North American and South American tectonic plates joined in the late
Neogene, volcanic mountain building created island chains which later formed the
Mesoamerican landbridge. Pliocene elevation created new habitats for speciation. While some genera died out in increasingly xerophytic mainland Africa, starting with the freezing of Antarctica about 20 million years ago and the formation of the
Benguela current, others, which also reached South America and Mesoamerica, such as
Beilschmiedia and
Nectandra are still surviving today in Africa in a number of species. The genus, however, died out in Africa, except for
P. indica and
P. barbujana, which survive in the fog-shrouded mountains of the
Canary Islands and
Madeira. Fossil evidence indicates that the genus originated in
West Africa during the
Paleocene, and spread to Asia, to South America, and to Europe and thence to
North America. It is thought that the gradual drying of Africa, west Asia, and the
Mediterranean from the
Oligocene to the
Pleistocene, and the
glaciation of
Europe during the Pleistocene, caused the extinction of the genus across these regions, resulting in the present distribution. Since this habitat is constantly threatened by encroaching agriculture, the laurel forest animal or vegetal species have already become rare in many of its former habitats and are threatened by further habitat loss. In Mesoamerica,
Persea proliferated into many new species, and the berries of some of them constitute a valuable food supply for
quetzals,
trogoniform birds that live in the montane rainforests of Mesoamerica. In particular, the
resplendent quetzal's favorite fruits are berries of wild relatives of the
avocado. Their differing maturing times in the cloudforest determine the migratory movements of the quetzals to differing elevation levels in the forests. With a gape width of , the quetzal swallows the small berry (aguacatillo) whole, which he catches while flying through the lower canopy of the tree, and then regurgitates the seed within from the tree. Wheelright in 1983 observed that parent quetzals take far less time intervals to deliver fruits to the young brood than insects or lizards, reflecting the ease of procuring fruits, as opposed to capturing animal prey. Since the young are fed exclusively berries in the first 2 weeks after hatching, these berries must be of high nutritional value. Usually only the total percentage of water, sugar, nitrogen, crude fats and carbohydrates are reported by ornithologists.
Persea species are also used as food plants by the
larvae of some
Lepidoptera species including
giant leopard moth,
Coleophora octagonella (which feeds exclusively on
P. carolinensis) and
Hypercompe indecisa. ==Classification==