Conceptual and empirical advances in Neotropical biodiversity research

Abstract

26PeerJ Preprints | https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3074v1 | CC BY 4.0 Open Access | rec: 6 Jul 2017, publ: 6 Jul 2017 Abstract: The outstanding biodiversity found in the American tropics (the Neotropics) has attracted the 45 attention of naturalists for centuries. Despite major advances in the generation of biodiversity data, many 46 questions remain to be answered. In this review, we first summarize some of the knowns and unknowns 47 about Neotropical biodiversity, and discuss how human impact may have drastically affected some of the 48 patterns observed today. We then link biodiversity to landscape, and outline major advances in 49 biogeographical research. In particular, we argue that it is crucial to test the effect of landscape and 50 climatic evolution to biotic diversification and distribution in order to achieve a comprehensive 51 understanding of current patterns. In this context, it is also important to consider extant and extinct taxa, 52 as well as to use probabilistic and parametric methods that explicitly include landscape evolution models.

The combined role of dispersal and niche evolution in the diversification of Neotropical lizards

“…Phyloclimatic modeling emerged as new field of research that integrates ecological niche modeling (ENM) with dated phylogenies to explore the climatic factors influencing the geographic distribution of species (Evans, Smith, Flynn, & Donoghue, 2009;Jakob, Heibl, Rodder, & Blattner, 2010;Nyári & Reddy, 2013) Broadscale phyloclimatic studies of Neotropical organisms are incipient (Seeholzer, Claramunt, & Brumfield, 2017;Zurano, Martinez, Canto-Hernandez, Montoya-Burgos, & Costa, 2017). (paulensis species group) or the Amazon savannas (striata species group; Ribeiro-Junior & Amaral, 2016a;Werneck, Giugliano, Collevatti, & Colli, 2009), which are important biodiversity centers in the Neotropical region (Antonelli, Ariza, et al, 2018). In general, Neotropical regions and biomes have changed considerably over time (Jaramillo & Cárdenas, 2013), making it important to consider historical changes in their connectivity and consequent impacts on biotic distribution and interchange.…”

Origins of old lineages in New Caledonia: A geologically informed test of the island‐hopping hypothesis

“…Expanding biogeographical models by adding data from other disciplines is an effective way to strengthen hypothesis-driven research and further move away from narrative biogeography (Crisp et al, 2011). There have been many calls for this 'trans-disciplinary' perspective (Antonelli et al, 2018;Donoghue & Moore, 2003;Ronquist & Sanmartín, 2011) since the first statistical approaches of biogeography (Ree et al, 2005), and important conceptual advances and case studies can be underlined (e.g. trait-dependent biogeography, fossil-based analyses, biogeographical models including niche modelling or palaeoclimatic reconstructions; Violle et al, 2014;Meseguer et al, 2015;Svenning et al, 2015;Silvestro et al, 2016;Pearse et al, 2018;Sukumaran & Knowles, 2018;Culshaw et al, 2021).…”

“…Thus, any evidence of now-vanished islands at different geological times and in the vicinity of NC can be part of biogeographical analyses, in a geologically informed test of the island-hopping hypothesis. Here, we adopt a 'trans-disciplinary biogeographic' approach (Antonelli et al, 2018) by summarizing this evidence to incorporate it into biogeographical models that allow, or disallow, island-hopping events.…”

Sistemática, filogenia e biogeografia de Thinouia Triana & Planch. (Sapindaceae)

“…Observamos uma concentração de registros no leste do Brasil e na América Central, onde estão as células com 50 ou mais registros, enquanto quase a metade das demais células apresenta ≤ 5 registros de ocorrência (Figura S2). Esse desbalanço no número de registros por células pode ser o reflexo de viés de amostragem próximos a grandes centros urbanos e de ensino e pesquisa, bem como estradas do leste do Brasil, onde localiza-se a Floresta Atlântica, uma das regiões mais estudadas e conhecidas da América do Sul (Oliveira et al, 2016;Antonelli, Ariza, et al, 2018). Já para o alto número de registros na América Central, pode ser explicada pelos inúmeros estudos da flora dos países daquela região, que iniciaram com mais expedições de coleta a partir da década de 1960 (Ortiz et al, 2019;Lagomarsino & Frost, 2020), o que é congruente com o aumento de registros de coleta de Paullinieae presente no banco de dados construído neste trabalho (Figura S1).…”

“…Embora a compreensão da biodiversidade em escala de tempo evolutivo tenha avançado para diversos grupos taxonômicos (Antonelli, Zizka, et al, 2018), a compreensão da história evolutiva no espaço geográfico ainda é baseada em grupos de animais vertebrados relativamente bem estudados (e.g., Haffer, 1969;Guedes et al, 2018;Quintero & Jetz, 2018) ou, no caso de plantas, em árvores (e.g., Richardson et al, 2001;Fine & Ree, 2006;ter Steege et al, 2013), com poucas exceções para grupos herbáceos (e.g., Zizka, Azevedo et al, 2020;Taylor et al, 2021) e lianas (e.g., DeWalt et al, 2015Narváez-Gomes et al, 2021). Nesse contexto, avançar no conhecimento de mais grupos taxonômicos, considerando diferentes formas de vida, em escala regional e continental têm sido especialmente importantes para entender a composição e dinâmica da biota Neotropical (Zizka, Azevedo, et al, 2020).…”