Predicting the future of threatened birds from a Neotropical ecotone area.

Climate change affects ecosystems in different ways. These effects are particularly worrying in the Neotropical region, where species are most vulnerable to these changes because they live closer to their thermal safety limits. Thus, establishing conservation priorities, particularly for the definition of protected areas (PAs), is a priority.

Discordant patterns of introgression across a narrow hybrid zone between two cryptic lineages of an Iberian endemic newt.

The study of natural hybrid zones can illuminate aspects of lineage divergence and speciation in morphologically cryptic taxa. We studied a hybrid zone between two highly divergent but morphologically similar lineages (south-western and south-eastern) of the Iberian endemic Bosca's newt (Lissotriton boscai) in SW Iberia with a multilocus dataset (microsatellites, nuclear and mitochondrial genes). STRUCTURE and NEWHYBRIDS analyses retrieved few admixed individuals, which classified as backcrosses involving parental individuals of the south-western lineage.

A dynamic continental moisture gradient drove Amazonian bird diversification.

The Amazon is the primary source of Neotropical diversity and a nexus for discussions on processes that drive biotic diversification. Biogeographers have focused on the roles of rivers and Pleistocene climate change in explaining high rates of speciation. We combine phylogeographic and niche-based paleodistributional projections for 23 upland terra firme forest bird lineages from across the Amazon to derive a new model of regional biological diversification.

Delimiting priority areas for the conservation of endemic and threatened Neotropical birds using a niche-based gap analysis.

Knowledge of spatiotemporal distribution of biodiversity is still very incomplete in the tropics. This is one of the major problems preventing the assessment and effectiveness of conservation actions. Mega-diverse tropical regions are being exposed to fast and profound environmental changes, and the amount of resources available to describe the distribution of species is generally limited.

Molecular evidence for cryptic candidate species in Iberian Pelodytes (Anura, Pelodytidae).

Species delineation is a central topic in evolutionary biology, with current efforts focused on developing efficient analytical tools to extract the most information from molecular data and provide objective and repeatable results. In this paper we use a multilocus dataset (mtDNA and two nuclear markers) in a geographically comprehensive population sample across Iberia and Western Europe to delineate candidate species in a morphologically cryptic species group, Parsley frogs (genus Pelodytes). Pelodytes is the sole extant representative of an ancient, historically widely distributed anuran clade that currently includes three species: P.

Cryptic patterns of diversification of a widespread Amazonian woodcreeper species complex (Aves: Dendrocolaptidae) inferred from multilocus phylogenetic analysis: implications for historical biogeography and taxonomy.

Inferring evolutionary relationships between recently diverged taxa is still challenging, especially taking into account the likely occurrence of incomplete lineage sorting and/or introgression. The Xiphorhynchus pardalotus/ocellatus species complex includes between two to three polytypic species and eight to nine subspecies distributed throughout most of lowland Amazonia and the foothills of the eastern Andes. To understand its historical diversification and address the main unsettled issues of phylogenetic relationships and taxonomy, we apply several approaches using data from two mitochondrial (Cyt b and ND2) and three nuclear genes (β-fibint7, CPZint3 and CRYAAint1) for all described species and most subspecies of this complex.