Neither barriers nor refugia explain genetic structure in a major biogeographic break: phylogeography of praying mantises in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

Abstract

The Atlantic Forest is one of the world's top biodiversity hotspots, but the diversification processes of its biota are still poorly known, with competing models attributing dominant roles to either Quaternary climatic changes or geographic barriers. Many studies identify the Doce river as a major phylogeographic break, but the reasons for this phenomenon are highly debated. Here we test the predictions of the refugial and barrier models for a common species of praying mantis, Miobantia fuscata, focusing in the areas immediately south and north of the Doce river. Our analyses show high intraspecific genetic diversity, deep coalescence times and no evidence for recent population expansion. Phylogeographic structure is inconsistent with a refugial hypothesis. Significant gene flow between northern and southern populations also conflicts with a strong role for geographic barriers. This study highlights the need for considering invertebrate taxa to infer recent landscape changes, and points towards a more complex picture of genetic diversification in the Atlantic Forest.

A new species and first record of Vates Burmeister, 1838 from the Atlantic Rainforest (Mantodea: Vatinae)

“…The majority of species were described by German, Austrian, Swedish, Swiss and Italian entomologists between the 1830s and early 20 th century; several decades of scant scientific production have followed since. Reinvigorated interest in the Neotropical praying mantis fauna has resulted in the discovery of new species associated to this biome, or in the clarification of their taxonomic status (Scherrer 2014;Svenson 2014;Agudelo & Rivera 2015; this study), whereas phylogeographic studies are beginning to emerge (Santos et al 2018). The discovery of Vates phoenix sp.…”

A new antshrike (Aves: Thamnophilidae) endemic to the Caatinga and the role of climate oscillations and drainage shift in shaping cryptic diversity of Neotropical seasonal dry forests

“…The Refugia Hypothesis has been tested in the Neotropical region mostly using humid forest taxa (Batalha‐Filho et al., 2013; Batalha‐Filho & Miyaki, 2016; Menezes et al., 2017; Santos et al., 2018; Solomon et al., 2008). Studies focused on Caatinga taxa found evidence of population and/or range expansions as we did for Sakesphoroides (Caetano et al., 2008; Coutinho‐Abreu et al., 2008; Faria et al., 2013; Nascimento et al., 2013; Oliveira et al., 2015; Thomé et al., 2016).…”

Species delimitation, environmental cline and phylogeny for a new Neotropical genus of Cryptinae (Ichneumonidae)

“…The pairwise genetic distance between the sequenced specimens, from French Guyana and southeastern Brazil (5.7%), was higher than the 3% threshold often used to separate species by DNA barcoding initiatives (e.g. [ 43 ]), but high levels of intraspecific divergence for COI sequences are not uncommon among insects, including studies recording 30.8% for cockroaches [ 44 ], 31.15% for thrips [ 45 ], 21.8% for mosquitoes [ 46 ], 18.3% for praying mantises [ 47 ], and 17.5% for Drosophila [ 48 ]. Sequencing of only two specimens does not allow for further inferences of population structure in C .…”