Discovery of a new species of Anolis lizards from Brazil and its implications for the historical biogeography of montane Atlantic Forest endemics

Abstract

Recent biological discoveries have changed our understanding of the distribution and evolution of neotropical biotas. In the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, the discovery of closely related species isolated on distant mountains has led to the hypothesis that the ancestors of montane species occupied and dispersed through lowland regions during colder periods. This process may explain the distribution of an undescribed Anolis lizard species that we recently discovered at a montane site in the Serra dos Órgãos National Park, a popular tourist destination close to the city of Rio de Janeiro. To investigate whether this species is closely related to other Atlantic Forest montane anoles, we implement phylogenetic analyses and divergence time estimation based on molecular data. We infer the new species nested within the Dactyloa clade of Anolis, forming a clade with A. nasofrontalis and A. pseudotigrinus, two species restricted to montane sites about 400 km northeast of Serra dos Órgãos. The new species diverged from its sister A. nasofrontalis around 5.24 mya, suggesting a cold-adapted lowland ancestor during the early Pliocene. Based on the phylogenetic results, we emend the definitions of the series taxa within Dactyloa, recognizing a clade containing the new species and several of its relatives as the nasofrontalis series. Lastly, we provide morphological data supporting the recognition of the new species and give it a formal scientific name. Future studies are necessary to assess how park visitors, pollutants, and shrinking montane habitats due to climate change will affect this previously overlooked anole species.

Non-Avian Reptiles of the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: status of knowledge and commented list

“…The taxa added to the list (Table 1) refer to the description of new taxa, such as Dipsas sazimai (Fernandes et al, 2010) and Anolis neglectus (Prates et al, 2020) and the addition of new records of non-indigenous taxa, such as Cnemidophorus aff. lemniscatus (as C. cryptus; Oliveira et al, 2015), and A. sagrei (Oliveira et al, 2018) whether or not a viable population had been established.…”

“…The first comprehensive inventory on the reptile species of RJ state was published about 15 years ago (Rocha et al, 2004), in which 127 species of reptiles were known to occur in the state (one crocodilian, seven amphisbaenians, nine chelonians, 28 lizards and 82 snakes). A number of subsequent studies have increased the knowledge on reptile composition of RJ by inventorying areas in the state (e.g., Citeli et al, 2016;Rocha et al, 2018;Martins et al, 2019) extending the geographic distribution of some species (e.g., Silveira, 2008;Goyannes-Araújo et al, 2009;Hamdan et al, 2015), describing new taxa (e.g., Fernandes et al, 2010;Prates et al, 2020), and providing new records of non-indigenous species (e.g., Siciliano et al, 2014;Oliveira et al, 2018). The recent advances, along with a number of additional taxonomic adjustments through the years (e.g., Sturaro et al, 2018;Hoogmoed et al, 2019), made the species list of RJ become outdated.…”

Evolutionary drivers of polymorphic sexual signals in slender anoles

“…We found all Anolis species expected to occur in sampled regions based on species ranges (Avila-Pires 1995; Ribeiro-Junior 2015). Attesting to the thoroughness of our sampling, over the course of our expeditions we sampled two Anolis species thought to be extinct and one new to science (Prates et al 2017, 2020). The final dataset included occurrence data for other 11 anole species at the 32 sites for which A. fuscoauratus dewlap coloration data were available: Anolis auratus , A. chrysolepis , A. dissimilis , A. nasofrontalis , A. ortonii , A. planiceps , A. punctatus , A. scypheus , A. tandai , A. trachyderma , and A. transversalis (Table S1).…”

“…Ribeiro-Junior 2015). Attesting to the thoroughness of our sampling, over the course of our expeditions we sampled two Anolis species thought to be extinct and one new to science (Prates et al 2017(Prates et al , 2020. The final dataset included occurrence data for other 11 anole species at the 32 sites for which A. fuscoauratus dewlap coloration data were available: Anolis auratus, A.…”

“…It is made The copyright holder for this preprint this version posted November 30, 2020. ; https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.29.402784 doi: bioRxiv preprint relationships of dominance among species. Anolis fuscoauratus is the smallest and most slender of lowland Amazonian Anolis species (Avila-Pires 1995;Prates et al 2017Prates et al , 2020. By evolving divergent dewlaps, A. fuscoauratus might reduce agonistic interspecific interactions and thus avoid aggression from its larger relatives.…”