PHYLOGEOGRAPHY AND MORPHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION IN A NEOTROPICAL DRY FOREST BIRD (Phytotoma rutila: COTINGIDAE

CALDERÓN LUCIANO; RODRÍGUEZ-CAJARVILLE MARÍA JOSÉ; CABANNE GUSTAVO S.; TUBARO PABLO L.

Puerto Iguazú, Misiones

Congreso; Ornithological Congress of the Americas; 2017

Association of Field Ornithologists, Sociedade Brasileira de Ornitologia, Aves Argentinas

The Andean mountain range has a complex and dynamic landscape, which could haveimpacted on biological evolution and sparked allopatric and parapatric diversificationevents. Allopatric diversification occurs between isolated populations, and parapatricdiversification could occur with gene flow across environmental gradients, such as thoseoccurring in the slopes of the Andes. Phytotoma rutila (Cotingidae) is a good model tostudy diversification across the Andean slopes because occurs from lowland Chaco(subepecies rutila) to highland dry forests (subspecies angustirostris). We addressed themorphological and genetic variation of P. rutila to study its evolutionary history and toevaluate if the two subspecies represents evolutionary independent lineages. Westudied two nuclear genetic markers (VLDL and G3PDH) and one mitochondrial marker(CB) of 25 specimens of Argentina and Bolivia, collected from 0 to 3500 m of altitude.We also measured six morphological traits from museum specimens. Thephylogeographic analyses showed that there is a moderate genetic structure betweenlowlands of Argentina and highlands of Bolivia (Fst= 0.49, p= 0.0002). Regardingmorphology, all traits were positively associated with elevation. Particularly, wing andbeak length presented the strongest association with altitude. The morphological andgenetic analyses taken together indicate divergence along the elevation axis of theAndes, suggesting local adaptation of populations along environmental gradients,probably linked with temperature regimes or partial pressure of oxygen. Our study alsoindicates that both subspecies do not represent independent lineages because theyseem to be part of continuous morphological cline and because they are not reciprocallymonophyletic.