HISTORICAL BIOGEOGRAPHIC RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN Liolaemus boulengeri Group (Iguania: Liolaemidae)

PORTELLI, S. N.; ABDALA, C S; SCHULTE, J.; DÍAZ GÓMEZ, J. M; DÍAZ FERNANDEZ, L; QUINTEROS, A S

The South American Journal of Herpetology

Sociedade Brasileira de Herpetologia .

Año: 2022 p. 41 - 56

1808-9798

The Liolaemus boulengeri group is a member of the subgenus Eulaemus of the genus Liolaemus.This group is widely distributed in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Paraguay, as well as in the PeruvianTiticaca basin, and the coasts of Brazil and Uruguay. Here, we combined the revision of a fossilrecord of Liolaemus, dated at 20 Myr, with relaxed molecular clock analysis to provide a timecalibrated. molecular-based phylogenetic hypothesis including 90% of the group?s known species.We performed biogeographic analyses applying Bayesian Binary (BBM), Dispersion-Extinction-Cladogenesis (DEC), and Statistical Dispersion-Vicariance (S-DIVA) and found that the ancestralarea of the L. boulengeri group was likely located in central-west Argentina and reached its currentdistribution after a series of dispersal and vicariance events. These processes may have been favored by a period of climatic stasis which occurred at the beginning of the group?s diversification, around 41 Myr. The congruence of the results of all three biogeographic analyses evidences new hypotheticalhistorical distributions and events which led to the current species distribution of the L. boulengeri group.