Distribuição, nicho potencial e ecologia morfológica do gênero enyalius (squamata, leiosauridae) : testes de hipotéses para lagartos de florestas continentais brasileiras

AUTOR(ES)
FONTE

IBICT - Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2012

RESUMO

In the first chapter, we saw that the main factors affecting the Enyalius¿ geographical distribution were the annual mean temperature, latitude, and the mean diurnal temperature, which indicates a possible thermal adaptation as a base to explain the group distribution. Enyalius distribution was reflected in the morphological geographical variation, as demonstrated by the differences in the body size and morphological structures, which were explained by climatic, spatial and structural variables. The Allen rule was corroborated, as patterns in the morphological variation in Enyalius were correlated with thermal and geographical conditions. The thermal adaptation hypothesis may be the basis to explain Enyalius distribution in different Brazilian forests. In the second chapter we studied the potential distribution areas for each species in the group, and we identified the general environmental characteristics affecting the species occurrence in their habitats, for most species. We suggest that variables such as latitude and mean amplitude of daily temperature along the Brazilian coast overlapped in most of our models, characterizing the main distribution of the species belonging to the genus Enyalius in the Atlantic Forest. In the third chapter, we found that there are morphological and environmental patterns associated with the species, independent of their phylogenetic or geographical relationship. We observed that environmental features seem to be more critical to determine the species occurrence than their evolutionary heritage (e.g. philogenetic inertia). Finally, this study indicated that some evolutionary changes in body size and proportions might be associated to the divergence in habitat requirements and/or the differences in substrate use, which need further investigation. We conclude that the observed morphological variation in Enyalius can be a direct consequence of adaptative responses to local environmental conditions, which demonstrated the high phenotipic plasticity, based on their ecology in environments from mainland.

ASSUNTO(S)

enyalius ecomorphology distribuicao geografica enyalius ecomorfologia lizard lagartos geographic distribution potential niche

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