Areas of endemism in Argentina: an analysis using 840 species of plants, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and insects.

SZUMIK, CLAUDIA; AAGESEN, LONA; ARZAMENDIA, VANESA; BALDO, DIEGO; CASAGRANDA, DOLORES; CUEZZO, FABIANA; DÍAZ GÓMEZ JUAN MANUEL; DI GIACOMO, ADRIÁN; GIANNINI, NORBERTO; GIRAUDO, ALEJANDRO RAUL; GOLOBOFF, PABLO; GRAMAJO, C.; KOPUCHIAN, CECILIA; KRETZSCHMAR, SONIA; LIZARRALDE, MERCEDES; MOLINA, ALEJANDRA; MOLLERACH, MARCOS; NAVARRO, FERNANDO; NOMDEDEU, SOLEDAD; PANIZZA, ADELA; SANDOVAL, MARÍA; SCROCCHI, GUSTAVO; TAHER, LEILA; ZULOAGA, FERNANDO

San Miguel de Tucunán

Congreso; XVII International Meeting of the Willi Hennig Society and VIII Reunión Argentina de Cladística y Biogeografía. 2008.; 2008

The generalized notion of endemism implies distributional concordance of different groups of living taxa. The main goal of this work is to analyze in a surface of 1 000 000 km2 (between the parallels 21S and 32S) whether it is possible to find areas of endemism supported by species of groups as diverse as those included in our data set. Then, the distribution of 820 species of plants (47 families), mammals (11 families), reptiles (6 families), amphibians (8 families), birds (19 families) and insects (21 families) is analyzed by using an optimality criterion to identify areas of endemism, implemented in the program NDM/VNDM. This is the largest study ever done in South America covering such an array of taxonomic diversity, and required the collaboration of numerous specialists. Unlike many other distributional studies, the present dataset contains only first-hand records provided by specialists in the respective groups. Almost all of these records are connected to a specimen in one of the major collections of Argentina, many of them collected by the authors. This implies that the ID and taxonomy are reliable (and subject to scrutiny), which is not the case for records downloaded from data bases on the www. Only those distribution patterns supported by several taxa are discussed, such as the Alto Andina area (supported by Camelids, Aves, Reptiles and Grasses) and the Yungas area (supported by 43?109 species from all the groups included).