Publications by authors named "Marcelo F Napoli"

We studied the relationship between shape, size, and developmental time in the embryonic ontogeny of 15 species of the frog genus Physalaemus. As in other anuran exotrophic embryos, shape changes are correlated with size increase and mainly concern tail elongation, decrease in body height, and increase in fin height. Size ranges and developmental times vary interspecifically.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Systematic assessments of species extinction risk are crucial for effective conservation, and the second Global Amphibian Assessment evaluated over 8,000 species for their threat levels.
  • - Amphibians are the most at-risk vertebrates, with 40.7% of species globally threatened, and their status has worsened since previous assessments, especially in salamanders and the Neotropics.
  • - The major threats contributing to declining amphibian populations include disease, habitat loss, and increasing impacts from climate change, highlighting the urgent need for more conservation funding and initiatives to reverse negative trends.
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The genus Phyllodytes comprises 15 species, ten of them having their tadpole external morphology described in the literature. However, there are few descriptive studies on chondrocranium and hyobranchial skeleton. In this work, we describe the chondrocranium and hyobranchial skeleton of Phyllodytes larvae and discuss shared features and interspecific variation.

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The Neotropical region is known both for its megadiverse fauna and for the significant deficiency of our knowledge on species limits. The Amazon and Atlantic Forest are the two most diverse and large rainforests in South America, and they harbor many groups of sister species and sister genera. The frog genus Pristimantis is the most speciose genus of terrestrial vertebrates with 546 species, but only three of them occur in the Atlantic forest.

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The genus Proceratophrys Miranda-Ribeiro, 1920, frogs from the family Odontophrynidae Lynch, currently contains 41 nominal species with poorly resolved phylogenetic relationships (Frost 2019; Mângia et al. 2018). Molecular data from 15 and 18 Proceratophrys species support the monophyletic hypothesis of the genus (Teixeira-Jr et al.

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The treefrog Scinax camposseabrai (Bokermann) is endemic to the Brazilian semiarid region and known from the municipalities of Maracás, Igaporã and Curaçá, in the state of Bahia, and from the municipality of Matias Cardoso, northern Minas Gerais state, Brazil (Frost 2019). It was removed from the synonymy of Scinax x-signatus (Spix), recognized as a valid species, and placed in the S. ruber clade (sensu Faivovich et al.

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We aim to evaluate the genetic structure of an Atlantic Forest amphibian species, Scinax eurydice, testing the congruence among patterns identified and proposed by the literature for Pleistocene refugia, microrefugia, and geographic barriers to gene flow such as major rivers. Furthermore, we aim to evaluate predictions of such barriers and refugia on the genetic structure of the species, such as presence/absence of dispersal, timing since separation, and population expansions/contractions. We sequenced mitochondrial and nuclear genetic markers on 94 tissue samples from 41 localities.

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Scinax melanodactylus is a small treefrog distributed within the Tropical Atlantic morphoclimatic domain (see Ab'Sáber 1977 for South American morphoclimatic domains), from northern Espírito Santo state to Sergipe state in Brazil (Lourenço et al. 2014). The species is usually found inhabiting herbaceous and shrubby xerophytic vegetation (e.

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The Neotropical genus Trachycephalus Tschudi currently comprises 14 species distributed in lowlands of Mexico, Central and South America east of the Andes, south until northern Argentina (Frost 2014) and throughout Brazil (IUCN 2014). Seven species of the genus have tadpoles formerly described: T. coriaceus (Peters) (Schiesari & Moreira 1996; Lescure et al.

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The east coast of Brazil comprises an extensive area inserted in the Tropical Atlantic Domain and is represented by sandy plains of beach ridges commonly known as Restingas. The coastal environments are unique and house a rich amphibian fauna, the geographical distribution patterns of which are incipient. Biogeographical studies can explain the current distributional patterns and provide the identification of natural biogeographical units.

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Dendropsophus branneri is a small treefrog largely distributed throughout the Tropical Atlantic and Caatinga morphoclimatic domains (see Ab'Sáber 1977 for morphoclimatic domains), from northeastern to southeastern Brazil [Lutz 1973, Frost 2014; see Zina et al. 2014 for taxonomic comments on D. minusculus (Rivero, 1971) and D.

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The treefrog genus Dendropsophus Fitzinger comprises 95 species, with geographic distribution from northern Argentina and Uruguay north through tropical South and Central America to tropical southern Mexico (Frost 2014). Dendropsophus studerae was included in the D. microcephalus clade by Faivovich et al.

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The taxonomic and biogeographic affinities of Strabomantis aramunha from the Campos Rupestres of Brazil are intriguing. A unique skull morphology of females suggest affinities with the broad-headed eleutherodactylines of Northwestern South America in the genus Strabomantis. Male and juvenile morphology nonetheless suggest S.

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We performed cytogenetic analyses on specimens from three population samples of Proceratophrys boiei from southeastern and northeastern Brazil. We stained chromosomes of mitotic and meiotic cells with Giemsa, C-banding and Ag-NOR methods. All specimens of P.

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