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

SCHULTE, JAMES; ABDALA, CRISTIAN SIMÓN; QUINTEROS, ANDRÉS SEBASTIÁN; FERNÁNDEZ, LINDA DÍAZ; PORTELLI, SABRINA NOELIA; DÍAZ GÓMEZ, JUAN MANUEL

South American Journal of Herpetology

Sociedade Brasileira de Herpetologia

Año: 2022 vol. 25 p. 41 - 56

1808-9798

The Liolaemus boulengeri group is a member of the subgenus Eulaemus of thegenus Liolaemus. This group is widely distributed in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, andParaguay, as well as in the Peruvian Titicaca basin, and the coasts of Brazil andUruguay. Here, we combined the revision of a fossil record of Liolaemus , dated at 20Myr, with relaxed molecular clock analysis to provide a time-calibrated. molecularbased phylogenetic hypothesis including 90% of the group?s known species. Weperformed biogeographic analyses applying Bayesian Binary (BBM), DispersionExtinction-Cladogenesis (DEC), and Statistical Dispersion-Vicariance (S-DIVA) andfound that the ancestral area of the L. boulengeri group was likely located in centralwest Argentina and reached its current distribution after a series of dispersal andvicariance events. These processes may have been favored by a period of climaticstasis which occurred at the beginning of the group?s diversification, around 41 Myr.The congruence of the results of all three biogeographic analyses evidences newhypothetical historical distributions and events which led to the current speciesdistribution of the L. boulengeri group.