Multiscale endemism analysis for amphibians of Paraguay

Abstract

Although there are many studies that analyse and describe the distribution patterns of diverse organisms in South America at different scales, Paraguay has been poorly assessed from a biogeographic point of view. Some of the available contributions on the biogeography of Paraguay are based on different taxonomic groups, such as mammals, birds, reptiles, and plants, describing relationships between species and their habitats by using indices of similarity and cluster analysis. The main objective of this contribution is to identify areas of endemism based on the distribution of the 87 amphibian species known from Paraguay, and to compare the results with the three schemes of ecoregion proposed for the country. Eight areas of endemism were identified at different size of grids/scales, congruent with Dry Chaco, Atlantic Forest, Cerrado, Grasslands of Mesopotamia, Ñeembucú, and the Great American Chaco ecoregions.

Areas of endemism conservation hot spots of Paraguay: A study using a multiscale and diverse taxa approach

“…The multiscale analysis was performed by comparing the areas of endemism found at different scales, as studying different grid sizes can influence the recognition of biogeographic shape. Thus, areas of endemism are better supported when identified at more than one grid size (Cabral et al 2020). The results show some of the areas we identified at two or all three study scales, regardless of grid size.…”

“…Moreover, despite the presence of several continental and global scale schemes (e.g., Holdridge 1947, Cabrera and Willink 1973, Udvardy 1975, Huek 1978, Dinerstein et al 1995, the biogeography of Paraguay has been poorly studied; see Avila et al (2018) for a review on the subject. The most recent study of biogeography in Paraguay was that conducted by Cabral et al (2020). Paraguay is a Mediterranean republic located in the center of South America.…”

Herpetological Journal 2020 and beyond – Issue 30(1)

“…The current issue of The Herpetological Journal epitomises the range of studies in reptile and amphibian biology and spans the many topics that the journal covers. This issue has articles discussing taxonomic and phylogenetic relationships of snakes (Eskandarzadeh et al, 2020), how captivity affects skin colour in frogs (Passos et al, 2020), population changes in long term datasets of lizards (Meek, 2020), amphibian distribution and endemism in South America (Cabral et al, 2020;Ribeiro Morais et al, 2020), and a global review of monoand bispecific genera of amphibians (Amori et al, 2020).…”