Evolutionarily significant units of the critically endangered leaf frog Pithecopus ayeaye (Anura, Phyllomedusidae) are not effectively preserved by the Brazilian protected areas network

Abstract

Protected areas (PAs) are essential for biodiversity conservation, but their coverage is considered inefficient for the preservation of all species. Many species are subdivided into evolutionarily significant units (ESUs) and the effectiveness of PAs in protecting them needs to be investigated. We evaluated the usefulness of the Brazilian PAs network in protecting ESUs of the critically endangered Pithecopus ayeaye through ongoing climate change. This species occurs in a threatened mountaintop ecosystem known as campos rupestres. We used multilocus DNA sequences to delimit geographic clusters, which were further validated as ESUs with a coalescent approach. Ecological niche modeling was used to estimate spatial changes in ESUs’ potential distributions, and a gap analysis was carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the Brazilian PAs network to protect P. ayeaye in the face of climate changes. We tested the niche overlap between ESUs to gain insights for potential management alternatives for the species. Pithecopus ayeaye contains at least three ESUs isolated in distinct mountain regions, and one of them is not protected by any PA. There are no climatic niche differences between the units, and only 4% of the suitable potential area of the species is protected in present and future projections. The current PAs are not effective in preserving the intraspecific diversity of P. ayeaye in its present and future range distributions. The genetic structure of P. ayeaye could represent a typical pattern in campos rupestres endemics, which should be considered for evaluating its conservation status.

Predicting impacts of global climatic change on genetic and phylogeographical diversity of a Neotropical treefrog

“…Small PAs have the highest genetic richness and PGeoD. The southern boundaries of the potential distribution in the future have a low number of PAs, and thus, if the species tracks the changes of suitable habitats towards the southern, its conservation will be threatened by the lack of PAs, constraining effective conservation practice (Lourenço‐de‐Moraes et al., 2019; Magalhães et al., 2017; Quan et al., 2017). Therefore, establishing more PAs in S. squalirostris southern distribution is highly important to maintain its genetic and phylogeographical diversity in the future.…”

Integrative Phylogeography Reveals Conservation Priorities for the Giant Anteater Myrmecophaga tridactyla in Brazil

“…We follow the rationale proposed by Magalhães et al [62] of using phylogeographic model selection to validate the delimitation of populations by testing between scenarios of split populations versus a single cohesive population. Historical patterns of mtDNA gene flow for different migration models were estimated under a Bayesian coalescent framework in Migrate-n v3.6.11 [63].…”

Reversing extinction trends: new uses of (old) herbarium specimens to accelerate conservation action on threatened species

“…It is worth stating at the outset that effective conservation action can only be achieved when wildlife managers and other actors can focus efforts on a well‐defined unit for conservation. These are variably referred to as a Conservation Unit (CU), an Evolutionary Significant Unit (ESU), or a Designatable Unit or DU (de Magalhães et al ., 2017). A DU (or a CU or an ESU) is often a species, but it can be a subspecies or variety (Fraser & Bernatchez, 2001; Mee et al ., 2015).…”