Poster SBE Isabel Bonatelli

1. 1Departamento de Biologia, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Sorocaba, SP, Brasil
2Departamento de Ecologia e Biologia Evolutiva, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Diadema, SP, Brazil
3Department of Biological Sciences, Rutgers University-Newark, Newark, USA
4Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA
5Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, Distrito Federal, Brazil
*E-mail: belbonatelli@gmail.com
Comparative phylogeography in the
South American Dry Diagonal
Isabel Aparecida da Silva Bonatelli1,2*, Marcelo Gehara3, Bryan C. Carstens4,
Guarino R. Colli5, Evandro Marsola Moraes1
I Meeting of Systematics, Biogeography and Evolution (SBE)
July 2020

2. INTRODUCTION
 Vegetation adapted to hydric stress
 Intense climatic seasonality
 Specialized biotas
 Barrier for biotic exchange between Amazonia and Atlantic forest
 Evidences of historical changes in biomes’ distribution
 Unclear whether species responded synchronously or not to Pleistocene
climatic oscillations
South American Dry Diagonal (Caatinga, Cerrado, Chaco)
“Diagonal of open formations " (Vanzolini 1974)
We investigate:
 the demographic changes that might be associated with Pleistocene events
 which abiotic and/or biotic variables best predict species demographic responses
 the synchronicity in the demographic responses

3. MATERIALS & METHODS
cpDNA
20 lineages
mtDNA
50 lineages
Distribution of the 20 lineages of plants and 50 lineages of
animals gathered from a literature survey
1 – Lineage specific Approximate Bayesian Computation
2 – Hierarchical ABC
Investigates shared demographic responses among lineages
3 – Random Forest predictive approach
 abiotic traits: 13 for animals / 14 for plants
 biotic traits: 8 for animals/ 10 for plants
Identifies demographic changes within lineages
Identifies possible predictor variables for the demographic changes

4. RESULTS
Lineage specific ABC hABC Predictive variables
 = 0.83
160 ka (110 – 287)
 = 0.75
128 ka (104 –304)
Most important:
Family, Maximum height,
Pollinators, Order, Dispersers
Accuracy = 87.88%
Most important:
Family, Habitat use type,
Trophic level, Order, Daily Activity,
Longitude
Accuracy = 98.16%
 = 0.84
223 ka (164 – 307)
 = 0.80
268 ka (104 –296)
Reptilia
Arachnida
Amphibia 11
6
2
EXP BOTT CS
15
19
5
Insecta
Amphibia
Reptilia
Arachnida
8
42
1
Amphibia Reptilia
4
1
Insecta
Amphibia
Reptilia
Arachnida
Reptilia
Arachnida
Amphibia
Amphibia Reptilia
EXP BOTT CS
Velloziaceae
Melastomataceae
Bignoniaceae
Fabaceae
Cactaceae
Moraceae
Asteraceae Bignoniaceae Cactaceae
2
1
1
Asteraceae
Fabaceae
Cactaceae
Moraceae
Malpighiaceae
2
2
1
1
1
Velloziaceae
Melastomataceae
Bignoniaceae
Fabaceae
Cactaceae
Moraceae
1
1
1
1
1
2
EXP
BOTT
CS
7
7
4
Asteraceae Bignoniaceae Cactaceae
EXP BOTT CS
Asteraceae
Fabaceae
Cactaceae
Moraceae
Malpighiaceae
Plants
Animals

5. DISCUSSION & CONCLUSIONS
 Our findings suggest contrasting demographic responses for species distribution within the same region during
glacial times.
 Communities may not respond as a cohesive unit during environmental changes.
 Species-specific attributes seem to be related to these contrasting responses, such as those related to the use of
resources, reproduction and dispersion capacity.
 Lineages with the same response showed synchronous changes across Middle and Late Pleistocene, supporting
the hypothesis of shared evolutionary response in these lineages due to a common environmental mechanism.
Funding: CAPES, FAPESP