The Improbable Journeys of Epiphytic Plants Across The Andes: Historical Biogeography of Cycnoches (Catasetinae, Orchidaceae)

AbstractThe Andean uplift is one of the major orographic events in the New World and has impacted considerably the diversification of numerous Neotropical organisms. Despite its importance for biogeography, the specific role of mountain ranges as a dispersal barrier between South and Central American lowland plant lineages is still poorly understood. The swan orchids (Cycnoches) comprise ca 34 epiphytic species distributed in lowland and pre-montane forests of Central and South America. Here, we study the historical biogeography of Cycnoches to better understand the impact of the Andean uplift on the diversification of Neotropical lowland plant lineages. Using novel molecular sequences (five nuclear and plastid regions) and twelve biogeographic models with and without founder-event speciation, we infer that the most recent common ancestor of Cycnoches may have originated in Amazonia ca 5 Mya. The first colonization of Central America occurred from a direct migration event from Amazonia, and multiple bidirectional trans-Andean migrations between Amazonia and Central America took place subsequently. Notably, such biological exchange occurred well after major mountain building periods. The Andes have not acted as an impassable barrier for epiphytic lowland lineages such as orchids having a great potential for effortless dispersal because of the very light, anemochorous seeds.

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The role of Central American barriers in shaping the evolutionary history of the northernmost glassfrog,Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni(Anura: Centrolenidae)

PeerJ ◽

10.7717/peerj.6115 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

pp. e6115 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Angela M. Mendoza ◽

Wilmar Bolívar-García ◽

Ella Vázquez-Domínguez ◽

Roberto Ibáñez ◽

Gabriela Parra Olea

Keyword(s):

Genetic Structure ◽

Central America ◽

Population Expansion ◽

Central American ◽

Fault System ◽

Mountain Range ◽

Amphibian Species ◽

Biogeographic History ◽

History Of ◽

The Impact

The complex geological history of Central America has been useful for understanding the processes influencing the distribution and diversity of multiple groups of organisms. Anurans are an excellent choice for such studies because they typically exhibit site fidelity and reduced movement. The objective of this work was to identify the impact of recognized geographic barriers on the genetic structure, phylogeographic patterns and divergence times of a wide-ranging amphibian species,Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni. We amplified three mitochondrial regions, two coding (COI and ND1) and one ribosomal (16S), in samples collected from the coasts of Veracruz and Guerrero in Mexico to the humid forests of Chocó in Ecuador. We examined the biogeographic history of the species through spatial clustering analyses (Geneland and sPCA), Bayesian and maximum likelihood reconstructions, and spatiotemporal diffusion analysis. Our data suggest a Central American origin ofH. fleischmanniand two posterior independent dispersals towards North and South American regions. The first clade comprises individuals from Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and the sister speciesHyalinobatrachium tatayoi; this clade shows little structure, despite the presence of the Andes mountain range and the long distances between sampling sites. The second clade consists of individuals from Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and eastern Honduras with no apparent structure. The third clade includes individuals from western Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico and displays deep population structure. Herein, we synthesize the impact of known geographic areas that act as barriers to glassfrog dispersal and demonstrated their effect of differentiatingH. fleischmanniinto three markedly isolated clades. The observed genetic structure is associated with an initial dispersal event from Central America followed by vicariance that likely occurred during the Pliocene. The southern samples are characterized by a very recent population expansion, likely related to sea-level and climatic oscillations during the Pleistocene, whereas the structure of the northern clade has probably been driven by dispersal through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and isolation by the Motagua–Polochic–Jocotán fault system and the Mexican highlands.

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Leadership in Rural Central American Villages

Strategic Leadership in PK-12 Settings - Advances in Educational Marketing, Administration, and Leadership ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-9242-6.ch005 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 53-64

Author(s):

Yanira Oliveras-Ortiz ◽

Wesley D. Hickey ◽

Jennifer S. Jones

Keyword(s):

Narrative Inquiry ◽

Central America ◽

Education System ◽

Educational Leaders ◽

Strategic Thinking ◽

Central American ◽

The World ◽

The Impact ◽

Role Of The Principal

Educational leaders in rural schools across the world face distinctive challenges. In this chapter, the authors report the findings of two studies examined through narrative inquiry conducted in a Garifuna and Ketchi Mayan village in Central America. The case studies explore the role of the principal as a strategic leader to improve the education system, and the impact of these leaders in their communities. By sharing these stories, the authors illustrate the importance of strategic thinking, as well as both transformative and servant leadership to promote change.

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Scott Cook. Understanding Commodity Cultures: Explorations in Economic Anthropology with Case Studies from Mexico. Lanham, Rowman & Littleford Publishers, Inc., 2004, xi, 349 pp.

Comparative Studies in Society and History ◽

10.1017/s0010417505210393 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 47 (4) ◽

pp. 892-893 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Chris Gregory

Keyword(s):

Central America ◽

Social Role ◽

Gift Exchange ◽

Central American ◽

Economic Anthropology ◽

Market Exchange ◽

Bay Area ◽

The People ◽

The Gift ◽

The Impact

Economic anthropology has two ‘sacred' field sites—one in Melanesia, the other in Central America—and the empirical data gathered from these sites has set the theoretical agenda for the sub-discipline. Malinowski conducted seminal fieldwork in both of these areas and the respective subjects of his investigations tells us much about the socio-economic concerns of people in Melanesia and Central America. His classic ethnography on the Kula exchange system of the Milne Bay area of Papua New Guinea, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, established Melanesia as the classic home of gift exchange. The postwar ethnographies have only served to confirm the passion Melanesians have for creating intricate forms of gift exchange: Andrew Strathern's The Rope of Moka, introduced us to the ties that bind the ‘big men' in the Highlands; Michael Young's Fighting with Food: Leadership, Values and Social Control in a Massim Society, challenged us to rethink the social role of food, and so on. These ethnographies, and many others like them, have provided the ethnographic base on which general theories of the gift have risen, Marilyn Strathern's The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia, being the best-known recent synthesis. The product of Malinowski's Central American fieldwork, Malinowski in Mexico: The Economics of a Mexican Market System (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982), which he wrote with J. de la Fuente, has not had the impact of Argonauts, for a number of reasons, including the fact that an English translation of the 1957 Spanish edition took some twenty-five years to appear, and that his research, carried out in 1940, was not pioneering in the same ethnographic and theoretical way that Argonauts was. His Mexican work was part of a long tradition of American scholarship on the peasant-artisan commodity producers of this area. Commodity production and exchange is to the people of Central America what gift exchange is to Melanesians. However, the exchange of commodities in Central America is a not ceremonial ritual, but rather everyday reality that the people must undertake in order to survive. It has been this way for centuries, which is why Central American ethnographers have devoted so much time to describing and analyzing petty commodity reproduction. This is not to say that market exchange is unimportant for the people of Melanesia, but what sets Melanesia apart is that gift exchange has flourished under the impact of capitalism, and it is this question that commentators have tried to describe and explain. What then are the peculiar social conditions found in Central America that account for the specificities of the economy found there? What conceptual frameworks have economic anthropologists developed to come to terms with these facts?

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Phylogenetic relationships, origin and historical biogeography of the genus Sprattus (Clupeiformes: Clupeidae)

PeerJ ◽

10.7717/peerj.11737 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

pp. e11737

Author(s):

Cristian B. Canales-Aguirre ◽

Peter A. Ritchie ◽

Sebastián Hernández ◽

Victoria Herrera-Yañez ◽

Sandra Ferrada Fuentes ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Southern Hemisphere ◽

Northern Hemisphere ◽

Dna Sequences ◽

Phylogenetic Analyses ◽

Historical Biogeography ◽

Ancestral Population ◽

Recent Common Ancestor ◽

Most Recent Common Ancestor ◽

The Tropics ◽

Two Populations

The genus Sprattus comprises five species of marine pelagic fishes distributed worldwide in antitropical, temperate waters. Their distribution suggests an ancient origin during a cold period of the earth’s history. In this study, we evaluated this hypothesis and corroborated the non-monophyly of the genus Sprattus, using a phylogenetic approach based on DNA sequences of five mitochondrial genome regions. Sprattus sprattus is more closely related to members of the genus Clupea than to other Sprattus species. We also investigated the historical biogeography of the genus, with the phylogenetic tree showing two well-supported clades corresponding to the species distribution in each hemisphere. Time-calibrated phylogenetic analyses showed that an ancient divergence between Northern and Southern Hemispheres occurred at 55.8 MYBP, followed by a diversification in the Oligocene epoch in the Northern Hemisphere clade (33.8 MYBP) and a more recent diversification in the Southern Hemisphere clade (34.2 MYBP). Historical biogeography analyses indicated that the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) likely inhabited the Atlantic Ocean in the Southern Hemisphere. These results suggest that the ancestral population of the MRCA diverged in two populations, one was dispersed to the Northern Hemisphere and the other across the Southern Hemisphere. Given that the Eocene was the warmest epoch since the Paleogene, the ancestral populations would have crossed the tropics through deeper cooler waters, as proposed by the isothermal submergence hypothesis. The non-monophyly confirmed for the genus Sprattus indicates that its systematics should be re-evaluated.

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Out of Amazonia and Back Again: Historical Biogeography of the Species-Rich Neotropical Genus Philodendron (Araceae)

Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden ◽

10.3417/2018266 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 104 (1) ◽

pp. 49-68 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Dubán Canal ◽

Nils Köster ◽

Marcela Celis ◽

Thomas B. Croat ◽

Thomas Borsch ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Species Diversity ◽

Distribution Patterns ◽

Geographic Range ◽

Northern Andes ◽

Caribbean Islands ◽

The Andes ◽

Isthmus Of Panama ◽

History Of ◽

Andean Uplift ◽

The Impact

The origin of Neotropical species diversity is strongly associated with the geological history of South America. Since the Miocene, a number of species radiations across different Neotropical lineages coincided with the rise of the Andes and the formation of the Isthmus of Panama. The species-rich genus Philodendron Schott (Araceae) is widely distributed across Neotropical rainforests, originating in the Late Oligocene and diversifying more intensely from the Miocene onward. It is likely that its diversification process and distribution patterns are associated with recent geological changes in the Americas. To test this hypothesis, we sampled the species diversity of Philodendron across its entire geographic range and used a combination of three non-coding plastid regions (petD, rpl16, and trnK/matK) to obtain a comprehensive time-calibrated phylogeny. We then inferred geographic range evolution and explored the impact of the Andean orogeny on speciation, extinction, and dispersal. The genus Philodendron originated ~29 million years ago (mya) and experienced the earliest diversification events ~25 mya in the Pan-Amazonian rainforests. From the Middle Miocene onward, multiple geographic range expansion events occurred from Amazonia to southeast Brazil and to the area which would become the Chocó and the northern Andes. From the Pliocene onward, Philodendron reached Central America and the Caribbean islands, and Andean lineages recolonized and diversified in Amazonia. In Philodendron, higher diversification rates are found in the adjacent lowland rainforests of the northern Andes compared with other regions in the Neotropics, demonstrating a potential indirect impact of the Andean uplift on species radiations in lowland regions.

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Historical biogeography of early diverging termite lineages (Isoptera: Teletisoptera)

10.1101/2021.12.02.471008 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Menglin Wang ◽

Simon Hellemans ◽

Jan Šobotník ◽

Jigyasa Arora ◽

Aleš Buček ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Common Ancestor ◽

Continental Drift ◽

Historical Biogeography ◽

Rrna Genes ◽

Recent Common Ancestor ◽

Land Bridge ◽

Most Recent Common Ancestor ◽

The Family ◽

The Common ◽

Warm Temperate

AbstractTermites are social cockroaches distributed throughout warm temperate and tropical ecosystems. The ancestor of modern termites (crown-Isoptera) occurred during the earliest Cretaceous, approximately 140 million years ago, suggesting that both vicariance through continental drift and overseas dispersal may have shaped the distribution of early diverging termite lineages. We reconstruct the historical biogeography of three early diverging termite families – Stolotermitidae, Hodotermitidae, and Archotermopsidae – using the nuclear rRNA genes and mitochondrial genomes of 27 samples. Our analyses confirmed the monophyly of Stolotermitidae + Hodotermitidae + Archotermopsidae (clade Teletisoptera), with Stolotermitidae diverging from a monophyletic Hodotermitidae + Archotermopsidae approximately 100.3 Ma (94.3–110.4 Ma, 95% HPD), and with Archotermopsidae paraphyletic to a monophyletic Hodotermitidae. The Oriental Archotermopsis and the Nearctic Zootermopsis diverged 50.8 Ma (40.7–61.4 Ma, 95% HPD) before land connections between the Palearctic region and North America ceased to exist. The African Hodotermes + Microhodotermes diverged from Anacanthotermes, a genus found in Africa and Asia, 32.1 Ma (24.8–39.9 Ma, 95% HPD), and the most recent common ancestor of Anacanthotermes lived 10.7 Ma (7.3–14.3 Ma, 95% HPD), suggesting that Anacanthotermes dispersed to Asia using the land bridge connecting Africa and Eurasia ∼18–20 Ma. In contrast, the common ancestors of modern Porotermes and Stolotermes lived 20.2 Ma (15.7–25.1 Ma, 95% HPD) and 26.6 Ma (18.3–35.6 Ma, 95% HPD), respectively, indicating that the presence of these genera in South America, Africa, and Australia involved over-water dispersals. Our results suggest that early diverging termite lineages acquired their current distribution through a combination of over-water dispersals and dispersal via land bridges. We clarify the classification by resolving the paraphyly of Archotermopsidae, restricting the family to Archotermopsis and Zootermopsis, and elevating Hodotermopsinae (Hodotermopsis) as Hodotermopsidae (status novum).

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The state of knowledge on the deglaciation of America in 2017

Cuadernos de Investigación Geográfica ◽

10.18172/cig.3318 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 43 (2) ◽

pp. 361

Author(s):

D. Palacios

Keyword(s):

Central America ◽

North Atlantic ◽

Mountain Range ◽

Arid Areas ◽

Special Issue ◽

The North ◽

The Andes ◽

The North Atlantic ◽

The Antarctic ◽

The Impact

This work presents a summary of all contributions included in this Special Issue on the deglaciation of America. It analyses the differences and coincidences between the phases of glacial evolution and their chronology in each of the regions studied, and seeks a possible explanation for asynchronies, according to the opinions of the authors of the contributions. Most of the papers show significant diversity within each region due to local factors and different approaches to their study. Often, local differences are even more important than differences with other regions. In North and Central America glacial evolution appears quite uniform, in line with the evolution of the temperature in the North Atlantic. The differences found between some regions may be due to slight variations in the impact of the temperature of the Atlantic in each region, and to differences in approaching their study. The glacial evolution of the Andes presents a greater diversity, probably due to the existence of arid areas along most of the mountain range, which show a greater sensitivity to the reception of humidity than to temperature in their glacial balance. In general, researchers have detected an attenuation of the influence of the temperature of the North Atlantic towards the south, and of the Antarctic Cold Reversal towards the north.

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Further species diversity in Neotropical Oropogon (Lecanoromycetes: Parmeliaceae) in Central America

The Lichenologist ◽

10.1017/s0024282913000212 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 45 (4) ◽

pp. 553-564 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Steven D. LEAVITT ◽

Theodore L. ESSLINGER ◽

Matthew P. NELSEN ◽

H. Thorsten LUMBSCH

Keyword(s):

Central America ◽

New World ◽

Common Ancestor ◽

Sequence Data ◽

Recent Common Ancestor ◽

Molecular Sequence Data ◽

Molecular Sequence ◽

Most Recent Common Ancestor ◽

Nuclear Its ◽

Β Tubulin

AbstractThe new species Oropogon evernicus Essl. & S. Leavitt and O. protocetraricus S. Leavitt & Essl. are described from montane regions of Central America, further increasing the diversity of this genus in the New World. Oropogon evernicus is separated from O. americanus by the presence of medullary tissue directly beneath the pseudocyphellae, while O. protocetraricus is separated from O. caespitosus by the presence of protocetraric acid. The segregation of both species is confirmed by molecular sequence data (nuclear ITS, nuLSU, and β-tubulin). Both species appear to have split from their most recent common ancestor during the Miocene, supporting Miocene-dominated diversification of neotropical Oropogon species found in Central America.

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Highland biodiversity of Fanniidae (Insecta, Diptera): fourteen new species from the Andes and Central America

Zootaxa ◽

10.11646/zootaxa.4551.3.4 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 4551 (3) ◽

pp. 330 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

DIANA GRISALES ◽

CLAUDIO J. B. DE CARVALHO

Keyword(s):

New Species ◽

Central America ◽

New Records ◽

Neotropical Region ◽

Identification Key ◽

Central American ◽

Ecological Structure ◽

The Andes ◽

High Elevations

In the neotropics, vegetation formations at high elevations are often unique, with their own characteristic vegetation because of unique and complex evolutionary histories. The complexity of the biogeographic and ecological structure of the fauna is demonstrated by the specialized fauna and flora occurring in these regions. Fanniidae (Diptera) is one of these specialized groups that became very diversified in the highlands. Currently, of the 91 species of Fanniidae in the Neotropical region, 43 (8 Euryomma, 35 Fannia) occur exclusively in Andean and Central American highlands. Here, we increase that highland diversity by describing 14 new species from 1000–4150 m.a.s.l. in the Andes and Central America: Fannia awa sp. nov., F. bari sp. nov., F. boruca sp. nov., F. bribri sp. nov., F. huetare sp. nov., F. humahuaca sp. nov., F. kabekwa sp. nov., F. palta sp. nov., F. polleti sp. nov., F. quillacingas sp. nov., F. teribi sp. nov., F. terraba sp. nov., F. tsachilas sp. nov. and F. yukpa sp. nov. We also provide an identification key for male specimens and diagnoses and descriptions of the species, along with photographs and illustrations of the male terminalia. New records and updated distributions are also provided for the Andean species.

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Molecular dating of the emergence of anaerobic rumen fungi and the impact of laterally acquired genes

10.1101/401869 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Yan Wang ◽

Noha Youssef ◽

M.B. Couger ◽

Radwa Hanafy ◽

Mostafa Elshahed ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Plant Biomass ◽

Molecular Dating ◽

Recent Common Ancestor ◽

Comparative Genomic ◽

Phylogenomic Analysis ◽

Gene Gain ◽

Plant Materials ◽

Most Recent Common Ancestor ◽

The Impact ◽

Lineage Specific Genes

AbstractThe anaerobic gut fungi (AGF) or Neocallimastigomycota inhabit the rumen and alimentary tract of herbivorous mammals, where they play an important role in the degradation of plant fiber. Comparative genomic and phylogenomic analysis of the AGF has long been hampered by their fastidious growth pattern as well as their large and AT-biased genomes. We sequenced 21 AGF transcriptomes and combined them with 5 available genome sequences of AGF taxa to explore their evolutionary relationships, time their divergence, and characterize patterns of gene gain/loss associated with their evolution. We estimate that the most recent common ancestor of the AGF diverged 66 (±10) million years ago, a timeframe that coincides with the evolution of grasses (Poaceae), as well as the mammalian transition from insectivory to herbivory. The concordance of these independently estimated ages of AGF evolution, grasses evolution, and mammalian transition to herbivory suggest that AGF have been important in shaping the success of mammalian herbivory transition by improving the efficiency of energy acquisition from recalcitrant plant materials. Comparative genomics identified multiple lineage-specific genes and protein domains in the AGF, two of which were acquired from an animal host (galectin) and rumen gut bacteria (carbohydrate-binding domain) via horizontal gene transfer (HGT). Four of the bacterial derived “Cthe_2159” genes in AGF genomes also encode eukaryotic Pfam domains (“Atrophin-1”, “eIF-3_zeta”, “Nop14”, and “TPH”) indicating possible gene fusion events after the acquisition of “Cthe_2159” domain. A third AGF domain, plant-like polysaccharide lyase N-terminal domain (“Rhamnogal_lyase”), represents the first report from fungi that potentially aids AGF to degrade pectin. Analysis of genomic and transcriptomic sequences confirmed the presence and expression of these lineage-specific genes in nearly all AGF clades supporting the hypothesis that these laterally acquired and novel genes in fungi are likely functional. These genetic elements may contribute to the exceptional abilities of AGF to degrade plant biomass and enable metabolism of the rumen microbes and animal hosts.

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