Phylogeographic history of South American populations of the silky anteater Cyclopes didactylus (Pilosa: Cyclopedidae)

Abstract

Cyclopes didactylus, commonly called silky anteater, is the smallest and least studied of the anteaters. It is an arboreal species occurring in rainforests, ranging from southern Mexico to Central and South America, with an apparently disjoint distribution between Amazon and Atlantic rainforests in Brazil. Although seven subspecies are recognized, little is known about its geographical variation. Thus, to evaluate the population dynamics and evolutionary history of the South American silky anteater, we analyzed 1542 bp sequences of the mitochondrial control region (CR), COI and Cyt-b genes of 32 individuals. Haplotype network, AMOVA and molecular dating analyses were performed and identified seven geographic clusters. The split of lineages separating Cyclopedidae (Cyclopes) and Myrmecophagidae (Myrmecophaga and Tamandua genera) was estimated around 41 million years ago (mya), and the intraspecific lineage diversification of C. didactylus began in the Miocene around 13.5 mya, likely in southwestern Amazonia. Tectonic and climatic events that took place in South America during the Tertiary and Quaternary seem to have influenced the evolutionary history of the species at different levels. This is the first study to investigate the population dynamics and phylogeography of the silky anteater, which contributes to a better comprehension of the biogeography of South America.

Ancient genetic divergence in bumblebee catfish of the genus Pseudopimelodus (Pseudopimelodidae: Siluriformes) from northwestern South America

“…Given the geographic distribution of each identified lineage, and the general branching of the tree topology, the results agree with the geological history of the Andean mountains in Northwestern South America and support previously proposed models of ichthyofauna division, based on several species-level phylogenies (Albert, Lovejoy & Crampton, 2006). Patterns of divergence, in concordance with the geological evolution of Northwestern South America found in this study, have also been reported in other fishes (Hernández et al, 2015;Machado, Galetti & Carnaval, 2018;Rincón-Sandoval, Betancur & Maldonado-Ocampo, 2019) and other taxa such as mammals (Coimbra et al, 2017) and insects (Salgado-Roa et al, 2018;Bartoleti et al, 2018). In addition, our results support a north to south uplift of the Colombian Andes (Florez, 2003), as diversification of Pseudopimelodus occurred in a sequential manner from older lower altitude diversification events to younger higher altitude diversification events, as was also reported in Neotropical plant species in Colombia (Richardson et al, 2018).…”

Potential mammalian species for investigating the past connections between Amazonia and the Atlantic Forest

“…Hence, sampling deficiencies in the north-eastern dry diagonal, in addition to the non-inclusion of specimens deposited in museum collections or published records of species in this region [ 24 ] may have led to faulty estimates of the number of potential taxa that could have spread along the Eastern route. As new records appear with increased sampling effort through systematic biogeographic studies in this region, future reassessments will thus, almost certainly, find additional species, which evidence past dispersions along the Eastern route [ 69 – 73 , 76 ]. For example, several recent studies have presented new records of common forest species, such as for marsupials [ 74 – 77 ] and rodents [ 78 , 79 ] along the Eastern route.…”

Peer Review #2 of "Ancient genetic divergence in bumblebee catfish of the genus Pseudopimelodus (Pseudopimelodidae: Siluriformes) from northwestern South America (v0.2)"

“…Manuscript to be reviewed as mammals (Coimbra et al, 2017) and insects (Salgado-Roa et al, 2018;Bartoleti et al, 2018).…”