A rapid inventory of amphibians, squamates, and bats of Mata de Plátano Field Station and Nature Reserve, Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico harbors a diverse vertebrate fauna with high levels of endemism. However, while several books for vertebrate diversity and local checklists for birds have been published, checklists of amphibians, reptiles, and bats are lacking or nonexistent at both local and regional scales. In this study, we documented the amphibian, reptile, and bat faunas at Mata de Plátano Field Station and Nature Reserve, in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

Integrative methods reveal multiple drivers of diversification in rice paddy snakes.

Divergence dating analyses in systematics provide a framework to develop and test biogeographic hypotheses regarding speciation. However, as molecular datasets grow from multilocus to genomic, sample sizes decrease due to computational burdens, and the testing of fine-scale biogeographic hypotheses becomes difficult. In this study, we use coalescent demographic models to investigate the diversification of poorly known rice paddy snakes from Southeast Asia (Homalopsidae: Hypsiscopus), which have conflicting dates of origin based on previous studies.

Phylogenetic, morphological and niche differentiation unveil new species limits for the big brown bat ().

Phylogeographic accounts of mammals across fragmented landscapes show high levels of genetic, morphological and ecological variation. The big brown bat () widely spans mainland landmasses from Canada to Ecuador and Colombia, and the insular Caribbean through The Bahamas and Greater and Lesser Antilles. Given the distribution of , we hypothesized that insular lineages could represent a different species aided by isolation.

Presence of the snout beetle in Ecuador and potential invasion risk in South America.

snout beetles are a complex of at least eight cryptic species (Curculionidae: complex), native to mainland Australia and Tasmania, that defoliate trees and are considered important pests. Since the 19th century, three species of the complex have been introduced to other continents. Here, we document the presence of snout beetles in Ecuador.

Environmentally driven phenotypic convergence and niche conservatism accompany speciation in hoary bats.

Species that are geographically widespread may exist across environmentally heterogeneous landscapes that could influence patterns of occupation and phylogeographic structure. Previous studies have suggested that geographic range size should be positively correlated with niche breadth, allowing widespread species to sustain viable populations over diverse environmental gradients. We examined the congruence of phenotypic and phylogenetic divergence with the environmental factors that help maintain species level diversity in the geographically widespread hoary bats (Lasiurus cinereus sensu lato) across their distribution.