Amazonian Amphibian Diversity Is Primarily Derived from Late Miocene Andean Lineages

Abstract

The Neotropics contains half of remaining rainforests and Earth's largest reservoir of amphibian biodiversity. However, determinants of Neotropical biodiversity (i.e., vicariance, dispersals, extinctions, and radiations) earlier than the Quaternary are largely unstudied. Using a novel method of ancestral area reconstruction and relaxed Bayesian clock analyses, we reconstructed the biogeography of the poison frog clade (Dendrobatidae). We rejected an Amazonian center-of-origin in favor of a complex connectivity model expanding over the Neotropics. We inferred 14 dispersals into and 18 out of Amazonia to adjacent regions; the Andes were the major source of dispersals into Amazonia. We found three episodes of lineage dispersal with two interleaved periods of vicariant events between South and Central America. During the late Miocene, Amazonian, and Central American-Chocoan lineages significantly increased their diversity compared to the Andean and Guianan-Venezuelan-Brazilian Shield counterparts. Significant percentage of dendrobatid diversity in Amazonia and Chocó resulted from repeated immigrations, with radiations at <10.0 million years ago (MYA), rather than in situ diversification. In contrast, the Andes, Venezuelan Highlands, and Guiana Shield have undergone extended in situ diversification at near constant rate since the Oligocene. The effects of Miocene paleogeographic events on Neotropical diversification dynamics provided the framework under which Quaternary patterns of endemism evolved.

Una especie nueva de rana venenosa de altura del género Excidobates (Dendrobatoidea: Dendrobatidae) de la Cordillera del Cóndor

“…La mayoría de secuencias provienen de Summers et al (1999), Clough & Summers (2000), Santos et al (2003), Symula et al (2003), Grant et al (2006), Noonan & Wray (2006), Roberts et al (2006), Brown et al (2008), Santos et al (2009) y Brown et al (2011. Los números de acceso al GenBank están listados en la Fig.…”

“…La elección del grupo externo se basó en filogenias que muestran que Hyloxalus es el clado hermano del grupo interno (Santos et al, 2009). Las secuencias se alinearon con el programa MAFFT 6.814b bajo el algoritmo L-INS-i (Katoh et al, 2002).…”

“…Santos et al (2009) reportan dos especímenes de E. captivus (material suplementario) del occidente de la Cordillera del Cóndor en Ecuador y Brown et al (2011) citan material de Zamora Chinchipe. describen a las ranas del género Excidobates, como especies pequeñas o medianas, que no sobrepasan los 17 mm de longitud rostro-cloacal en E. captivus y 29 mm en E. mysteriosus.…”

Molecular phylogenetics and biogeography of the Neotropical skink genus Mabuya Fitzinger (Squamata: Scincidae) with emphasis on Colombian populations

“…The Neotropical realm comprises one of the largest reservoirs of 64 terrestrial biodiversity (Maiti and Maiti, 2011;Santos et al, 2009 Molecular data included DNA sequences from 250 specimens of 154 Mabuya, of which 111 were collected for this study (Fig. 1,155 Appendix A), and 139 were downloaded from GenBank Trachylepis capensis, T. perrotetii and T. vittata.…”

The mitochondrial genomes of three species of poison frogs (Anura: Dendrobates)

“…Although their phylogeny has been intensively studied (e.g. Grant et al 2006;Santos et al 2009), typically it has been reconstructed based on a limited number of molecular markers. Here we report nearly complete sequences of mitochondrial genomes of three species of Dendrobates, reconstructed from transcriptome (RNAseq) data, with the aim to provide additional molecular data that can be used, for example, in future examination of the evolutionary diversification of Poison frogs.…”