TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED HISTORICAL BIOGEOGRAPHY OF THE NEOTROPICAL LOWLAND AVIFAUNA: COMBINING DIVERSIFICATION ANALYSIS AND LANDSCAPE EVOLUTION (original) (raw)
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A cladistic biogeographical analysis was undertaken to identify the main events in the biotic diversification of the terrestrial Neotropical biota. For the 36 animal and plant taxa analysed, a component 9 area matrix was constructed, associating geographical data only with informative nodes, and it was analysed under implied weights using the software TNT. The general area cladogram obtained shows that the Neotropical region constitutes a monophyletic unit, with a first split separating the Antilles and a second one dividing the continental areas into a north-western and a south-eastern component. Within the northwestern component the areas split following the sequence northern Amazonia, south-western Amazonia, north-western South America, and Mesoamerica. Within the south-eastern component the areas split following the sequence south-eastern Amazonia, Chaco, and Parana. The three main components are treated as subregions: Antillean, Amazonian (northern Amazonian, southwestern Amazonian, Mesoamerican, and north-western South American dominions), and Chacoan (south-eastern Amazonian, Chacoan, and Parana dominions). Dispersal and vicariant events postulated to explain these pattens might have occurred during the Cretaceous, when the Caribbean plate collided with the Americas, a combination of eustatic sea-level changes and tectonic deformations of the continental platform exposed large parts of South America to episodes of marine transgressions, and the Andean uplift reconfigured the Amazonian area. Tertiary and Quaternary events are assumed to have later induced the diversification within these large biogeographical units.
Neotropical biodiversity: timing and potential drivers
Trends in Ecology and Evolution -1404, 2011
The origin of extant neotropical biodiversity has been a controversial topic since the time of Darwin. In this review, I discuss the timing of, and potential driving factors associated with, diversification using recent evidence from molecular phylogenetics. Although these studies provide new insights into the subject, they are sensitive to dating approaches and targets, and can eventually lead to biased conclusions. A careful analysis suggests that the origin of extant neotropical biodiversity cannot be attributed to the action of one or few events during key time intervals. Rather, it is the result of complex ecological and evolutionary trends initiated by Neogene tectonic events and palaeogeographical reorganisations, and maintained by the action of Pleistocene climatic changes. A origem da biodiversidade neotropical existente tem sido um tema controverso desde a época de Darwin. Nesta revisão, discuto o momento e os fatores de condução potenciais associados à diversificação usando evidências recentes de filogenética molecular. Embora esses estudos forneçam novos conhecimentos sobre o assunto, eles são sensíveis às abordagens e metas de namoro e podem eventualmente levar a conclusões tendenciosas. Uma análise cuidadosa sugere que a origem da biodiversidade neotropical existente não pode ser atribuída à ação de um ou poucos eventos durante os intervalos de tempo-chave. Em vez disso, é o resultado de tendências ecológicas e evolutivas complexas iniciadas por eventos tectônicos de Neogene e reorganizações palaeogeográficas e mantidas pela ação das mudanças climáticas do Pleistoceno.
The Origins and Drivers of Neotropical Diversity
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory), 2021
The origin of the outstanding Neotropical biodiversity is still debated. A comprehensive understanding is hindered by the lack of deep-time comparative data across wide phylogenetic and ecological contexts. Here we define and evaluate four evolutionary scenarios assuming different diversity trajectories and drivers of Neotropical diversification. Relying on 150 phylogenies (12,512 species) of seed plants and tetrapods, we found that diversity mostly expanded through time (70% of the clades), but scenarios of saturated (21%) and declining (9%) diversity also account for a substantial proportion of Neotropical diversity. These scenarios occur indistinctly across the major regions, habitats, and altitudes of the Neotropics, suggesting no geographic structure of Neotropical diversification. On the contrary, diversification dynamics differ across taxonomic groups: plant diversity mostly expanded through time (88%), while for a significant fraction of tetrapods (43%) diversity accumulated at a slower pace or declined toward the present. These opposite evolutionary patterns reflect different capacities for plants and tetrapods to cope with environmental change, especially in relation to climate cooling. Our results suggest that the assembly of Neotropical diversity is a long, clade-specific, and complex process resulting from a combination of gradual and pulse dynamics associated with environmental stability and instability over macroevolutionary scales. .
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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 are capable of bridging these research fields. In this review, aimed primarily at advanced students and early-career scientists, we introduce the concept of "trans-disciplinary biogeography," which refers to the integration of data from multiple areas of research in biology (e.g., community ecology, phylogeography, systematics, historical biogeography) and Earth and the physical sciences (e.g., geology, climatology, palaeontology), as a means to reconstruct the giant puzzle of Neotropical biodiversity and evolution in space and time. We caution against extrapolating re...
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The origin of the outstanding Neotropical biodiversity is still debated. A comprehensive understanding is hindered by the lack of deep-time comparative data across wide phylogenetic and ecological contexts. Here we define and evaluate four evolutionary scenarios assuming different diversity trajectories and drivers of Neotropical diversification. Relying on 150 phylogenies (12,512 species) of seed plants and tetrapods, we found that diversity mostly expanded through time (70% of the clades), but scenarios of saturated (21%) and declining (9%) diversity also account for a substantial proportion of Neotropical diversity. These scenarios occur indistinctly across the major regions, habitats, and altitudes of the Neotropics, suggesting no geographic structure of Neotropical diversification. On the contrary, diversification dynamics differ across taxonomic groups: plant diversity mostly expanded through time (88%), while for a significant fraction of tetrapods (43%) diversity accumulated at a slower pace or declined toward the present. These opposite evolutionary patterns reflect different capacities for plants and tetrapods to cope with environmental change, especially in relation to climate cooling. Our results suggest that the assembly of Neotropical diversity is a long, clade-specific, and complex process resulting from a combination of gradual and pulse dynamics associated with environmental stability and instability over macroevolutionary scales. .
Neotropical diversification seen through glassfrogs
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DIVERSIFICATION IN THE NEOTROPICS: PHYLOGENETIC PATTERNS AND HISTORICAL PROCESSES
Resumen. -Diversificación en el Neotrópico: Patrones filogenéticos y procesos históricos. -Resumimos los resultados de dos simposios que reunieron un amplio espectro de presentaciones sobre cómo los datos moleculares están aumentando nuestro conocimiento de los patrones y procesos de diversificación de las aves Neotropicales, y del momento en que esta diversificación tuvo lugar. Los expositores están asociados con museos de historia natural, lo que asegura que los datos moleculares esten asociados con especímenes de referencia. La sistemática molecular es un campo que avanza rápidamente, y que resulta muy promisorio para mejorar el entendimiento de los procesos evolutivos en los años venideros.