Amphibian and Reptilian Chorotypes in the Arid Land of Central Asia and Their Determinants

Abstract

The analysis of the biogeographic distribution of species is the basis for establishing a strategy for land management and responding to climatic change, but research on the distribution of amphibians and reptiles in the arid land in the middle of Asia is extremely limited. After classifying the chorotypes of amphibians and reptiles in the arid land of Central Asia using a clustering analysis, we delineated their distribution characteristics and discovered the ecological determinants for the chorotypes in terms of feature selection and the Akaike information criterion (AIC). We identified 6 chorotypes at the higher level and 16 sub-chorotypes at the lower level. Compared to small-scale or subjective research, which produces unstable results, research characterized by both large scale and clustering methods yields more consistent and stable results. Our results show that the Mean Altitude (MA), Mean Annual Temperature (MAT), and Mean Temperature in the Wettest Quarter (MTWE) are the critical variables determining the higher-level chorotypes. Furthermore, geographical factors appear to have a stronger influence on chorotypes than climatic factors. Several climatic variables and MA were identified as the best fit in the AIC model at the lower level, while the sub-chorotypes are determined more by multiple climatic factors with complex relationships. The research on amphibian and reptilian distribution patterns will shed light on the overall distribution of other species in the same understudied area. Widespread species in the study area are not clearly distinguished due to the cluster analysis computing process. This problem however, appears in studies of the distribution of other organisms thus warrants further research. Our methodology based on the selection of multiple models is effective to explore how the environment determines the distributions of different animal groups.

Seasonal Dietary Shifts Alter the Gut Microbiota of a Frugivorous Lizard Teratoscincus roborowskii (Squamata, Geckonidae)

“…The Turpan wonder gecko (Teratoscincus roborowskii ) is a walking gecko species endemic to the Turpan Depression in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China (Shi et al, 2007;Shi et al, 2002). They live in extreme desert environments (Song et al, 2009;Zhou et al, 2019). Research on Turpan wonder geckos mainly focuses on foraging mode, activity rhythms, and seed dispersal (Song et al, 2017;Werner et al, 1997;Yang et al, 2021).…”

Seasonal dietary shifts alter the gut microbiota of a frugivorous lizard Teratoscincus roborowskii (Squamata, Sphaerodactylidae)

“…They live in extreme desert environments (Song et al, 2009;Zhou et al, 2019). In this area, the average elevation is only −95 ~ −76 m, the average annual precipitation is 16.4 mm, and the annual evaporation is 3000 mm.…”

“…The Turpan wonder gecko ( Teratoscincus roborowskii ; Figure 1 ) is a walking gecko species endemic to the Turpan Depression in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China (Shi et al, 2002 , 2007 ). They live in extreme desert environments (Song et al, 2009 ; Zhou et al, 2019 ). In this area, the average elevation is only −95 ~ −76 m, the average annual precipitation is 16.4 mm, and the annual evaporation is 3000 mm.…”

The Silk roads: phylogeography of Central Asian dice snakes (Serpentes: Natricidae) shaped by rivers in deserts and mountain valleys

“…Whereas the Anatolian area is well-studied and provides several biogeographic hypotheses on the evolution of regional biota (e.g., Bilgin 2011 ), Central Asia (countries east of the Caspian Sea from Kazakhstan to Pakistan in the south and north-western China and Mongolia in the east) remains comparatively less explored. Several scenarios have been presented for the diversification of herpetofauna in Central Asia (e.g., Solovyeva et al 2018 ; Asadi et al 2019 ; Dufresnes et al 2019 ; Zhou et al 2019 ), suggesting that the diversity and expansion of various species in the region were linked with the Mid-Miocene climatic transition characterized by the rapid cooling and progressing aridification. Such diversification has been driven also by fluctuations of the Paratethys Sea which responded to the Messinian Salinity Crisis ( Van Baak et al 2017 ), one of the major events shaping the evolution, diversity, and distribution of the current herpetofauna in the Western Palearctic ( Poulakakis et al 2015 ).…”