Rubiacearum Americanarum Magna Hama Pars XLIX: Overview of the Neotropical Genus Tournefortiopsis (Guettardeae), With Some New Species and Subspecies

Guettarda L. (Rubiaceae) as traditionally circumscribed has been found to be polyphyletic in molecular analyses. Tournefortiopsis Rusby has been separated from it based on details of inflorescence arrangement, pyrene shape, and molecular analyses. We here find additional characters that distinguish this genus: valvate-induplicate corolla lobes and apical horns on the pyrenes. Some features that are usually consistent within species and often genera of Rubiaceae vary within some species of Tournefortiopsis, especially pubescence form and number of corolla lobes and locules. Our taxonomic review of this genus recognizes 12 species found in Central America and perhaps southern Mexico, the Lesser Antilles, and northern and Andean South America, and finds its center of diversity in the Andes of Colombia. Chomelia torrana C. M. Taylor is here transferred to Tournefortiopsis, and four species are newly described here plus one recently recognized variety is raised to species status, all in South America: T. crassifolia (Standl. ex Steyerm.) C. M. Taylor & A. C. Berger, T. deviana C. M. Taylor, T. robusta C. M. Taylor, T. sopkinii C. M. Taylor, and T. tamboana C. M. Taylor. Tournefortiopsis crispiflora (Vahl) Borhidi is here treated as widespread and morphologically variable, with a complex of forms that are not distinctive but completely separable and with notable diversification in Central America and the northern Andes. Four subspecies of T. crispiflora are recognized, with one circumscribed differently than previously and one newly described, T. crispiflora subsp. delicatula C. M. Taylor & A. C. Berger. The identity and characters of T. dependens (Ruiz & Pav.) Borhidi are clarified, and it is more widely distributed than previously noted. Six names are lectotypified.

Redescription of Apostolepis ambiniger (Peters, 1869) (Serpentes: Dipsadidae: Elapomorphini)

Apostolepis is a diverse genus of dipsadid snakes, currently comprising 34 species occurring in most cis-Andean South America. The taxonomy of the group is highly unstable. Upon discovering its type series, we redescribe the rare species A. ambiniger (Peters, 1869) and provide an account of its geographic distribution and morphological variation in pholidosis, osteology, and hemipenial characters. We also discuss some aspects of the taxonomy of Apostolepis.

Cinchona pubescens (quinine tree).

C. pubescens is a source of the drug quinine, used to control the effects of malaria, and Cinchona bark was being used in Europe as a treatment for malaria as early as the 1650s, before the plant was authenticated botanically (Raintree, 2003). The Jesuits had introduced it from the New World, hence the name Jesuit's bark or powder (Prendergast and Dolley, 2001). The bark was collected in its native Andean range and probably comprised a mixture of species including C. pubescens. The native range of C. pubescens extends from Andean South America in Bolivia north to Costa Rica. It was widely distributed throughout the tropics as a source of quinine, particularly by the British during the latter half of the 1800s (Moureau, 1945) and is probably still held in many tropical botanical gardens worldwide for its medicinal interest.

The identity of Félix de Azara’s “Alondras” and implications for Neotropical pipit nomenclature (Aves, Motacillidae: Anthus)

Félix de Azara described five species of “Alondra” in his seminal work on birds of Paraguay in 1805. Two of these are pipits Anthus: No. 146 Alondra Chií and No. 147 Alondra Correndera. Vieillot (1818) then formally described the two based entirely on Azaraʼs descriptions, respectively Anthus chii and Anthus correndera. The former has long been considered unidentifiable, though it has also been used frequently as a valid name for the Yellowish Pipit Anthus lutescens. The latter of the two names has been in valid usage since its description for the Correndera Pipit A. correndera of southern and Andean South America. In this paper we confirm that the description of No. 146 Alondra Chií is clearly identifiable and Anthus chii is the valid name for the Yellowish Pipit under the Principle of Priority, and Anthus turdinus of Merrem is a junior synonym of it. The description No. 147 Alondra Correndera is shown to refer to Ochre-breasted Pipit A. nattereri and not A. correndera as currently understood. However, the two names have been in constant usage for their respective species since their description, and thus we designate a neotype of the Correndera Pipit for current A. correndera under Article 75.6 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature to conserve current usage and avoid unnecessary nomenclatural confusion.

The Inca Empire

This chapter reviews the power and developmental trajectory of the Inca Empire, which dominated Andean South America from ca. 1400 until the 1530s. Opening with an overview of Spanish colonial chronicles, Andean environmental diversity, and the archaeological evidence for pre-Inca states, the discussion uses Michael Mann’s “IEMP” formulation of social power to describe Inca power in the Andean world. Inca military power evolved from the earliest imperial campaigns to the frontier wars that were underway at the time of the European invasions. Inca economic and political power demonstrates the articulation of provincial strategies that were implemented to varying degrees on diverse Andean landscapes. Inca ideological power—meaning, norms, aesthetics, and ritual practices—promoted specific beliefs and rituals, while accommodating a wide range of local practices. These variations in provincial rule reflect Andean diversity, as well as the ways that Inca imperial strategies evolved over several generations of expansion and consolidation.

Molecular systematics and phylogeography of a widespread Neotropical avian lineage: evidence for cryptic speciation with protracted gene flow throughout the Late Quaternary

Here we use an integrative approach, including coalescent-based methods, isolation–migration and species distribution models, to infer population structure, divergence times and diversification in the two species of the genus Cymbilaimus (Aves, Thamnophilidae). Our results support a recent and rapid diversification with both incomplete lineage sorting and gene flow shaping the evolutionary history of Cymbilaimus. The spatio-temporal pattern of cladogenesis suggests that Cymbilaimus originated in the north/western portion of cis-Andean South America and then diversified into the Brazilian Shield and Central America after consolidation of the modern Amazonian drainage and the Andean range. This evolutionary scenario is explained by cycles of range expansion and dispersal, followed by isolation, and recurrent gene flow, during the last 1.2 Myr. Our results agree with those recently reported for other closely related suboscine lineages, whereby the window of introgression between closely related taxa remains open for up to a few million years after their original split. In Cymbilaimus, introgression was recurrent between C. lineatus and C. sanctaemariae, even after they acquired vocal and ecological differentiation, supporting the claim that at least in Neotropical suboscines, full reproductive compatibility may take millions of years to evolve and cannot be interpreted as synonymous with a lack of speciation.

Systematics of big-eyed bats, genus Chiroderma Peters, 1860 (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae)

We present a revision of the Neotropical bat genus Chiroderma, commonly known as big-eyed bats. Although species of Chiroderma have a wide distribution from western México to southern Brazil, species limits within Chiroderma are not clearly defined, as attested by identification errors in the literature, and there is no comprehensive revision of the genus that includes morphological and molecular data. Our review is based on phylogenetic analyses of two mitochondrial (COI and CYTB) and two nuclear (RAG2 and DBY) genes, coalescence analyses of mitochondrial genes, and morphological analyses including type specimens of all named taxa. We recognize seven species in three clades: the first clade includes (1) C. scopaeum Handley, 1966, endemic to western México and previously considered a subspecies of C. salvini; and (2) C. salvini Dobson, 1878, a taxon associated with montane forests, distributed from México to Bolivia; the second clade includes (3) C. improvisum Baker and Genoways, 1976, endemic to the Lesser Antilles, and (4) C. villosum Peters, 1860, widely distributed on the continental mainland and polytypic, with subspecies C. v. villosum and C. v. jesupi; and the third clade includes (5) the polytypic C. doriae Thomas, 1891, with C. d. doriae distributed in eastern Brazil and Paraguay, and C. d. vizottoi, occurring in northeastern Brazil; (6) C. trinitatum Goodwin, 1958, distributed from Trinidad to Amazonia; and (7) C. gorgasi Handley, 1960, distributed from Honduras to trans-Andean South America, previously considered a subspecies of C. trinitatum.