Molecular phylogenetics, species diversity, and biogeography of the Andean lizards of the genus Proctoporus (Squamata: Gymnophthalmidae).

The family Gymnophthalmidae comprises ca. 220 described species of Neotropical lizards distributed from southern Mexico to Argentina. It includes 36 genera, among them Proctoporus, which contains six currently recognized species occurring across the yungas forests and wet montane grasslands of the Amazonian versant of the Andes from central Peru to central Bolivia. Here, we investigate the phylogenetic relationships and species limits of Proctoporus and closely related taxa by analyzing 2121 base pairs of mitochondrial (12S, 16S, and ND4) and nuclear (c-mos) genes. Our taxon sampling of 92 terminals includes all currently recognized species of Proctoporus and 15 additional species representing the most closely related groups to the genus. Maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian phylogenetic analyses recovered a congruent, fully resolved, and strongly supported hypothesis of relationships that challenges previous phylogenetic hypotheses and classifications, and biogeographic scenarios. Our main results are: (i) discovery of a strongly supported clade that includes all species of Proctoporus and within which are nested the monotypic Opipeuter xestus (a genus that we consider a junior synonym of Proctoporus), and two species of Euspondylus, that are therefore transferred to Proctoporus; (ii) the paraphyly of Proctoporus bolivianus with respect to P. subsolanus, which is proposed as a junior synonym of P. bolivianus; (iii) the detection of seven divergent and reciprocally monophyletic lineages (five of them previously assigned to P. bolivianus) that are considered confirmed candidate species, which implies that more candidate species are awaiting formal description and naming than currently recognized species in the genus; (iv) rejection of the hypothesis that Proctoporus diversified following a south to north pattern parallel to the elevation of the Andes; (v) species diversity in Proctoporus is the result of in situ diversification through vicariance in the grasslands of the high Andes, with at least five dispersals contributing to montane forest species.

Goicoechea N ，Padial JM ，Chaparro JC ，Castroviejo-Fisher S ，De la Riva I ... -  《-》

Phylogeny and biogeography of the most diverse clade of South American gymnophthalmid lizards (Squamata, Gymnophthalmidae, Cercosaurinae).

Nearly 50% of the diversity of the speciose Neotropical lizard clade Gymnophthalmidae is nested within the subclade Cercosaurinae. The taxonomy of Cercosaurinae lizards has been historically confusing because many diagnostic characters of those clades traditionally ranked as genera do not represent true diagnostic apomorphies. Even though molecular phylogenies of several 'genera' have been presented in the last few years, some of them remain poorly sampled (e.g., Anadia, Echinosaura, Potamites, Riama). In this paper we present a more comprehensive phylogeny of Cercosaurinae lizards with emphasis on Andean taxa from Ecuador and Peru, as well as a time-calibrated phylogeny with reconstruction of ancestral areas. Our analysis includes 52% of all recognized species of Cercosaurinae (67 species) and 1914 characters including three mitochondrial and one nuclear gene. We find that Anadia, Echinosaura, Euspondylus, Potamites, Proctoporus, and Riama are not monophyletic: the Tepuian Anadia mcdiarmidi is not sister to Andean species of Anadia; Echinosaura sulcarostrum is not included in the same clade formed by other species of Echinosaura and their more recent common ancestor; Teuchocercus is nested within Echinosaura; species of Euspondylus included in this study are nested within Proctoporus; Riama laudahnae is included in Proctoporus; and Potamites is paraphyletic and split in two separate clades, one of which we name Gelanesaurus, also a new genus-group name. Within Potamites, P. ecpleopus is paraphyletic, and P. strangulatus strangulatus and P. strangulatus trachodus are recognized as two distinct species. We also identify three unnamed clades (i.e., not nested within any of the recognized 'genera') from Andean populations in Ecuador and Peru. The estimated age of the clade Cercosaurinae (∼60Ma) corresponds to the early stages of the northern Andes. Even though the distribution of the most recent common ancestor of Cercosaurinae remains equivocal, our analysis shows that these lizards colonized and radiated along the northern Andes before reaching the central Andes in Peru. Finally, we present phylogenetic definitions for some of the recovered clades to promote a clear and precise classification of Cercosaurinae lizards.

Torres-Carvajal O ，Lobos SE ，Venegas PJ ，Chávez G ，Aguirre-Peñafiel V ，Zurita D ，Echevarría LY ... -  《-》

Historical biogeography and speciation in the neotropical highlands: molecular phylogenetics of the jay genus Cyanolyca.

Bonaccorso E 《-》

Lizards from the end of the world: phylogenetic relationships of the Liolaemus lineomaculatus section (Squamata: Iguania: Liolaemini).

The Liolaemus lineomaculatus section is a geographically widely distributed group of lizards from the Patagonian region of southern South America, and includes 18 described species representing the most southerly distributed Liolaemus taxa (the genus includes 228 species and extends from Tierra del Fuego north to south-central Peru). Despite high species diversity, the phylogenetic relationships of this section are unknown. In the present work we sampled all described species in the L. lineomaculatus section as well as currently undescribed candidate species to reconstruct the first complete phylogenetic hypothesis for the clade. Our data set included four anonymous nuclear loci, three nuclear protein-coding loci, and two mitochondrial genes. We compared results obtained with three different phylogenetic methods for the concatenated data set (Maximum Parsimony, Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian Inference) with a coalescent-based species tree approach (BEST), and recovered congruent, strongly-supported topological arrangements across all methods. We identified four main clades within the L. lineomaculatus section: the lineomaculatus, magellanicus, somuncurae, and kingii+archeforus groups, for which we estimated divergence times. We discuss the taxonomic implications of these results and how the future integration of phylogeographic, niche modeling and morphological approaches will allow testing biogeographical hypotheses in this clade.

Breitman MF ，Avila LJ ，Sites JW Jr ，Morando M ... -  《-》

Evolutionary history of Ramphastos toucans: molecular phylogenetics, temporal diversification, and biogeography.

The toucan genus Ramphastos (Piciformes: Ramphastidae) has been a model in the formulation of Neotropical paleobiogeographic hypotheses. Weckstein (2005) reported on the phylogenetic history of this genus based on three mitochondrial genes, but some relationships were weakly supported and one of the subspecies of R. vitellinus (citreolaemus) was unsampled. This study expands on Weckstein (2005) by adding more DNA sequence data (including a nuclear marker) and more samples, including R. v. citreolaemus. Maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian methods recovered similar trees, with nodes showing high support. A monophyletic R. vitellinus complex was strongly supported as the sister-group to R. brevis. The results also confirmed that the southeastern and northern populations of R. vitellinus ariel are paraphyletic. R. v. citreolaemus is sister to the Amazonian subspecies of the vitellinus complex. Using three protein-coding genes (COI, cytochrome-b and ND2) and interval-calibrated nodes under a Bayesian relaxed-clock framework, we infer that ramphastid genera originated in the middle Miocene to early Pliocene, Ramphastos species originated between late Miocene and early Pleistocene, and intra-specific divergences took place throughout the Pleistocene. Parsimony-based reconstruction of ancestral areas indicated that evolution of the four trans-Andean Ramphastos taxa (R. v. citreolaemus, R. a. swainsonii, R. brevis and R. sulfuratus) was associated with four independent dispersals from the cis-Andean region. The last pulse of Andean uplift may have been important for the evolution of R. sulfuratus, whereas the origin of the other trans-Andean Ramphastos taxa is consistent with vicariance due to drying events in the lowland forests north of the Andes. Estimated rates of molecular evolution were higher than the "standard" bird rate of 2% substitutions/site/million years for two of the three genes analyzed (cytochrome-b and ND2).

Patané JS ，Weckstein JD ，Aleixo A ，Bates JM ... -  《-》