scholarly journals South American freshwater fish diversity shaped by Andean uplift since the Late Cretaceous

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydian M Boschman ◽  
Fernanda A.S. Cassemiro ◽  
Luca Carraro ◽  
Jorad de Vries ◽  
Florian Altermatt ◽  
...  

South America is home to the highest freshwater fish biodiversity on Earth. The hotspot of species richness is located in the western Amazon Basin, and richness decreases downstream along the Amazon River towards the mouth at the Atlantic coast, which contradicts the positive relationship between stream size and biodiversity that is commonly observed in river systems across the world. We investigate the role of river rerouting events caused by Andean mountain building and repeated episodes of flooding in western Amazonia in shaping the modern-day richness pattern of freshwater fishes in South America. To this end, we combine a reconstruction of river networks following Andean surface uplift since 80 million years ago with a mechanistic biological model simulating dispersal, allopatric speciation and extinction over the dynamic landscape of rivers and lakes. We show that the numerous small river rerouting events in western Amazonia resulting from mountain building produced highly dynamic riverine habitats that caused high diversification rates, shaping the exceptional present-day richness of this region. The history of marine incursions and lakes, including the Miocene Pebas megawetland system in western Amazonia, played a secondary role. This study is a major step towards the understanding of the processes involved in the interactions between the solid Earth, landscapes, and life of extraordinary biodiverse South America.

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 956-965 ◽  
Author(s):  
Céline Jézéquel ◽  
Pablo A. Tedesco ◽  
William Darwall ◽  
Murilo S. Dias ◽  
Renata G. Frederico ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lydian M Boschman ◽  
Fabien L Condamine

Mountainous areas host a disproportionately large fraction of Earth's biodiversity, suggesting a causal relationship between mountain building and biological diversification. Mountain clade radiations are generally associated with environmental heterogeneity, and with ecological opportunities created during the formation of high-elevation habitats. In South America, most documented Andean clade radiations are recent (Neogene) and rapid. However, so far only few studies have explicitly linked Andean elevation to species diversification. Here, we present a curve of Andean elevation based on a recent compilation of paleo-elevational data back to the Late Cretaceous, and analyse the diversification history of six Andean frog and lizard families that originated equally far back in time. For two clades (Aromobatidae and Leptodactylidae), we find that they diversified most rapidly during the early phase of mountain building (Late Cretaceous - Paleogene), when the first high-elevation habitats emerged in South America. The diversification of two other clades (Centrolenidae and Dendrobatidae) are correlated with Cenozoic temperature variations, with higher speciation (and for Dendrobatidae, also higher extinction) rates during warm periods. The last two clades (Hemiphractidae and Liolaemidae) are best explained by environment-independent diversification, although for Liolaemidae, an almost equally strong positive correlation was found between speciation and Andean elevation since the late Eocene. Our findings imply that throughout the long-lived history of surface uplift in the Andes, mountain building drove the diversification of different clades at different times, while not directly affecting other clades. Our study illustrates the importance of paleogeographic reconstructions that capture the complexity and heterogeneity of mountain building in our understanding of the effects that a changing environment plays in shaping biodiversity patterns observed today.


Zootaxa ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4576 (1) ◽  
pp. 109 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEXANDRE PIRES MARCENIUK ◽  
RODRIGO ANTUNES CAIRES ◽  
LEONARDO MACHADO ◽  
NAJILA NOLIE CATARINE DANTAS CERQUEIRA ◽  
RAYLA ROBERTA M. DE S. SERRA ◽  
...  

The genus Orthopristis includes seven valid species, three from the western Atlantic and five from eastern Pacific, while the available identification guides and taxonomic keys incorrectly recognize Orthopristis ruber as the only valid species found on the Atlantic coast of South America. Efforts to expand the inventory of fish species from the northern coast of Brazil led to the identification of two distinct species of Orthopristis from Atlantic South America, based on the analysis of coloration patterns and meristic data, as well as DNA. In the present study, the limits of Orthopristis ruber are reviewed, while Orthopristis scapularis is recognized as a valid species for the northern and northeastern coasts of South America. Based on intermediate morphological characteristics and nuclear DNA markers, a hybrid zone was identified off the state of Espírito Santo, on the eastern Brazilian coast. Additionally, considerations are made on the diversity and biogeography of the coastal marine and estuarine fishes found on the Brazilian coast. 


Author(s):  
Mariela C. Castro ◽  
Murilo J. Dahur ◽  
Gabriel S. Ferreira

AbstractDidelphidae is the largest New World radiation of marsupials, and is mostly represented by arboreal, small- to medium-sized taxa that inhabit tropical and/or subtropical forests. The group originated and remained isolated in South America for millions of years, until the formation of the Isthmus of Panama. In this study, we present the first reconstruction of the biogeographic history of Didelphidae including all major clades, based on parametric models and stratified analyses over time. We also compiled all the pre-Quaternary fossil records of the group, and contrasted these data to our biogeographic inferences, as well as to major environmental events that occurred in the South American Cenozoic. Our results indicate the relevance of Amazonia in the early diversification of Didelphidae, including the divergence of the major clades traditionally ranked as subfamilies and tribes. Cladogeneses in other areas started in the late Miocene, an interval of intense shifts, especially in the northern portion of Andes and Amazon Basin. Occupation of other areas continued through the Pliocene, but few were only colonized in Quaternary times. The comparison between the biogeographic inference and the fossil records highlights some further steps towards better understanding the spatiotemporal evolution of the clade. Finally, our results stress that the early history of didelphids is obscured by the lack of Paleogene fossils, which are still to be unearthed from low-latitude deposits of South America.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 453-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. S. Moreira ◽  
S. R. Freitas ◽  
J. P. Bonatti ◽  
L. M. Mercado ◽  
N. M. É. Rosário ◽  
...  

Abstract. This article presents the development of a new numerical system denominated JULES-CCATT-BRAMS, which resulted from the coupling of the JULES surface model to the CCATT-BRAMS atmospheric chemistry model. The performance of this system in relation to several meteorological variables (wind speed at 10 m, air temperature at 2 m, dew point temperature at 2 m, pressure reduced to mean sea level and 6 h accumulated precipitation) and the CO2 concentration above an extensive area of South America is also presented, focusing on the Amazon basin. The evaluations were conducted for two periods, the wet (March) and dry (September) seasons of 2010. The statistics used to perform the evaluation included bias (BIAS) and root mean squared error (RMSE). The errors were calculated in relation to observations at conventional stations in airports and automatic stations. In addition, CO2 concentrations in the first model level were compared with meteorological tower measurements and vertical CO2 profiles were compared with aircraft data. The results of this study show that the JULES model coupled to CCATT-BRAMS provided a significant gain in performance in the evaluated atmospheric fields relative to those simulated by the LEAF (version 3) surface model originally utilized by CCATT-BRAMS. Simulations of CO2 concentrations in Amazonia and a comparison with observations are also discussed and show that the system presents a gain in performance relative to previous studies. Finally, we discuss a wide range of numerical studies integrating coupled atmospheric, land surface and chemistry processes that could be produced with the system described here. Therefore, this work presents to the scientific community a free tool, with good performance in relation to the observed data and re-analyses, able to produce atmospheric simulations/forecasts at different resolutions, for any period of time and in any region of the globe.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Deppner ◽  
Bedartha Goswami

<p>The impact of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on rivers are well known, but most existing studies involving streamflow data are severely limited by data coverage. Time series of gauging stations fade in and out over time, which makes hydrological large scale and long time analysis or studies of rarely occurring extreme events challenging. Here, we use a machine learning approach to infer missing streamflow data based on temporal correlations of stations with missing values to others with data. By using 346 stations, from the “Global Streamflow Indices and Metadata archive” (GSIM), that initially cover the 40 year timespan in conjunction with Gaussian processes we were able to extend our data by estimating missing data for an additional 646 stations, allowing us to include a total of 992 stations. We then investigate the impact of the 6 strongest El Niño (EN) events on rivers in South America between 1960 and 2000. Our analysis shows a strong correlation between ENSO events and extreme river dynamics in the southeast of Brazil, Carribean South America and parts of the Amazon basin. Furthermore we see a peak in the number of stations showing maximum river discharge all over Brazil during the EN of 1982/83 which has been linked to severe floods in the east of Brazil, parts of Uruguay and Paraguay. However EN events in other years with similar intensity did not evoke floods with such magnitude and therefore the additional drivers of the 1982/83  floods need further investigation. By using machine learning methods to infer data for gauging stations with missing data we were able to extend our data by almost three-fold, revealing a possible heavier and spatially larger impact of the 1982/83 EN on South America's hydrology than indicated in literature.</p>


2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina M. Bührnheim ◽  
Luiz R. Malabarba

Odontostilbe pulchra, previously considered species inquirenda in Cheirodontinae and doubtfully assigned from the río Orinoco basin, is redescribed with the rediscovery of two syntypes. Originally described to the Island of Trinidad, O. pulchra is widespread in Venezuela, the río Orinoco basin, in smaller coastal drainages of northern South America, in the Lake Valencia system, and río Essequibo basin. A punctual occurrence in the upper rio Negro, near southernmost headwaters of the río Orinoco, extends its distribution to the Amazon basin. Additionally, two new species of Odontostilbe from the río Orinoco basin are described.


2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 571-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Lasso-Alcalá ◽  
Jorge L. S. Nunes ◽  
Carlos Lasso ◽  
Juan Posada ◽  
Ross Robertson ◽  
...  

We examined 308 specimens of the Indo-Pacific blenniid Omobranchus punctatus deposited in four museum collections, and analyzed data on their collection locations to assess its invasion on the Atlantic coast of Central and South America. This species occurs in shoreline estuarine and marine habitats in the Indo-West Pacific. Previous sampling and recent records in the Tropical West Atlantic from 1930 to 2004 produced 20 records for: Panamá, Colombia, Venezuela, Trinidad and Brazil. In this work, we provide data on 17 new records for the Gulfs of Venezuela and Paria in Venezuela, as well as four records for Maranhão and Pará states in NE Brazil. The temporal pattern of collections (1930 - 2009) and the proximity of most localities to ports and zones of ship traffic indicate that O. punctatus was initially introduced to the Atlantic by ships travelling from India to Trinidad. Within Brazil the introduction is linked to shipping connected to petroleum platforms. In Maranhão and Pará the introduction may have occurred as a result of fish sheltering in fouling on hulls of ships moving between ports around the mouth of the Amazon River. Alternatively, the spread of this species along of the American coast may reflect the expansion of the range of O. puntactus through larval dispersal in northward flowing currents. We recommend monitoring of this introduced species, and studies of its ecology in West Atlantic areas.


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