9 documents found, page 1 of 1

Biogeographic history and cryptic diversity of saxicolous Tropiduridae lizards ...

Background: Phylogeographic research has advanced in South America, with increasing efforts on taxa from the dry diagonal biomes. However, the diversification of endemic fauna from the semiarid Caatinga biome in northeastern Brazil is still poorly known. Here we targeted saxicolous lizards of the Tropidurus semitaeniatus species group to better understand the evolutionary history of these endemic taxa and the C...

Efficiency of prey subjugation by one species of Myrmeleon larvae (Neuropetra: ...

Conceptual and empirical advances in Neotropical biodiversity research

The unparalleled biodiversity found in the American tropics (the Neotropics) has attracted the attention of naturalists for centuries. Despite major advances in recent years in our understanding of the origin and diversification of many Neotropical taxa and biotic regions, many questions remain to be answered. Additional biological and geological data are still needed, as well as methodological advances that ar...

Embracing heterogeneity: Coalescing the tree of life and the future of phylogen...

Building the Tree of Life (ToL) is a major challenge of modern biology, requiring advances in cyberinfrastructure, data collection, theory, and more. Here, we argue that phylogenomics stands to benefit by embracing the many heterogeneous genomic signals emerging from the first decade of large-scale phylogenetic analysis spawned by high-throughput sequencing (HTS). Such signals include those most commonly encoun...

Thermal physiology of Amazonian lizards (Reptilia: Squamata)

We summarize thermal-biology data of 69 species of Amazonian lizards, including mode of thermoregulation and field-active body temperatures (Tb). We also provide new data on preferred temperatures (Tpref), voluntary and thermal-tolerance ranges, and thermal-performance curves (TPC’s) for 27 species from nine sites in the Brazilian Amazonia. We tested for phylogenetic signal and pairwise correlations among therm...

The combined role of dispersal and niche evolution in the diversification of Ne...

Ecological requirements and environmental conditions can influence diversification across temporal and spatial scales. Understanding the role of ecological niche evolution under phylogenetic contexts provides insights on speciation mechanisms and possible responses to future climatic change. Large-scale phyloclimatic studies on the megadiverse Neotropics, where biomes with contrasting vegetation types occur in ...

In the wake of invasion: Tracing the historical biogeography of the South Ameri...

The Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI) was greatly influenced by the completion of the Isthmus of Panama and impacted the composition of modern faunal assemblages in the Americas. However, the contribution of preceding events has been comparatively less explored, even though early immigrants in the fossil records are evidence for waif dispersals. The cricetid rodents of the subfamily Sigmodontinae are a c...

Integrative overview of the herpetofauna from serra da mocidade, a granitic mou...

The Brazilian mountain ranges from the Guiana Shield highlands are largely unexplored, with an understudied herpetofauna. Here the amphibian and reptile species diversity of the remote Serra da Mocidade mountain range, located in extreme northern Brazil, is reported upon, and biogeographical affinities and taxonomic highlights are discussed. A 22-days expedition to this mountain range was undertaken during whic...

Patterns, mechanisms and genetics of speciation in reptiles and amphibians

In this contribution, the aspects of reptile and amphibian speciation that emerged from research performed over the past decade are reviewed. First, this study assesses how patterns and processes of speciation depend on knowing the taxonomy of the group in question, and discuss how integrative taxonomy has contributed to speciation research in these groups. This study then reviews the research on different aspe...