CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Abstract. 1. Wing development can influence biogeographic patterns, and muchdebate has been focused on the ecological conditions that favour secondary wingreductions in insects. Although grasshoppers are mostly flight-capable, brachypterismappears to be common in many species and has been typically associated with limiteddispersal abilities.2. This study presents the first comprehensive analysis of biodiversity patterns in SouthAmerican melanopline grassshoppers. Two different macroecological methodologieswere applied: a range?diversity plots approach and generalised lineal models (GLMs).The study simultaneously considered three features (species richness, range size, andwing development) and four potentially explanatory hypotheses that can influencegeographic biodiversity patterns: energy, environmental heterogeneity, seasonality, andhabitat suitability hypotheses.3. These analyses of dispersal abilities and distributional data indicate a clear andconsistent association between wing development and biogeographical patterns in SouthAmerican melanopline grasshoppers. Brachyptery was related to small distributionsizes, whereas the opposite was true for macroptery. Melanopline species richness isbest explained by all the environmental hypotheses considered in the analysis (energy,environmental heterogeneity, seasonality, and habitat suitability hypotheses), whereasgeographic range size is explained by the environmental heterogeneity and seasonalityhypotheses.4. Models indicate a stronger association with range size than with species richness,and it is therefore considered that range size is a key feature to elucidate the spatialpatterns of biodiversity. Despite the relevance of species richness and range sizes asdescriptors of macroecological and biodiversity patterns, these features are seldominvestigated simultaneously.