Papers by Alexandre Diniz
Ecography, Feb 13, 2020
Body size is one of the most influential traits affecting many ecological and physiological proce... more Body size is one of the most influential traits affecting many ecological and physiological processes across animal and plant taxa. Studies of the environmental factors shaping body size patterns may evaluate either temporal or spatial dimensions. Here, we analyzed body size evolution in the radiation of Anolis lizards across both geographical and temporal dimensions. We used a set of macroecological and macroevolutionary methods to test current and past environmental effects on geographical gradients of body size and its evolutionary rates. First, we test whether a set of current ecological/ physiological hypotheses (heat balance, productivity and seasonality) explains spatial body size gradients. Second, we evaluate how tempo (i.e. evolutionary rates) and mode (i.e. evolutionary process) of body size evolution changed through time and the role of paleo-temperatures on rates of body size evolution during the Cenozoic. We did not find a signature of current environmental variables driving spatial body size gradients. By contrast, we found strong support for a correlation between temperature changes (i.e. climate cooling) during the Cenozoic and rates of body size evolution (i.e. body size diversification). We suggest that patterns of body size evolution in Anolis lizards might be influenced by thermoregulatory behavior across clades and regions.
Proceedings of The Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Oct 3, 2006
Correlations between species richness and climate suggest non-random occupation of environmental ... more Correlations between species richness and climate suggest non-random occupation of environmental space and niche evolution through time. However, the evolutionary mechanisms involved remain unresolved. Here, we partition the occupation of environmental space into intra-and inter-clade components to differentiate a model based on pure conservation of ancestral niches with higher diversification rates in the tropics, and an adaptive radiation model based on shifts in adaptive peaks at the family level allowing occupation of temperate regions. We examined these mechanisms using within-and among-family skewness components based on centroids of 3560 New World bird species across four environmental variables. We found that the accumulation of species in the tropics is a result of both processes. The components of adaptive radiation have family level skewness of species' distributions strongly structured in space, but not phylogenetically, according to the integrated analyses of spatial filters and phylogenetic eigenvectors. Moreover, stronger radiation components were found for energy variables, which are often used to argue for direct climatic effects on diversity. Thus, the correspondence between diversity and climate may be due to the conservation of ancestral tropical niches coupled with repeated broad shifts in adaptive peaks during birds' evolutionary history more than by higher diversification rates driven by more energy in the tropics.
Biological Journal of The Linnean Society, Jan 23, 2018
Understanding the climatic and historical factors shaping species richness is a major goal of eco... more Understanding the climatic and historical factors shaping species richness is a major goal of ecology and biogeography. Consensus on how climate affects species richness is still lacking, but four potential and non-exclusive explanations have emerged: water-energy, where diversity is determined by precipitation and/or temperature; seasonality, where diversity is determined by seasonal variation in climate; heterogeneity, where diversity is determined by spatial variability in climate; and historical climatic stability, where diversity is determined by changes in climate through evolutionary time. Climate-richness relationships are also mediated by historical processes such as phylogenetic niche conservatism and lineage diversification across regions. We evaluated the effect of climate on species richness gradients of Anolis lizards and tested the role of phylogenetic niche conservatism (PNC) and regional diversification (RD) in the origin and maintenance of climate-richness relationships. Climate had a strong non-stationary relationship with species richness with strong shared effects among several climate axes. Regional differences in climate-richness relationships suggest different assembly processes between regions. However, we did not find evidence for a role of evolutionary factors such as PNC or RD underlying these relationships. We suggest that evolutionary processes affecting climate-richness relationships in Anolis likely were obscured by high dispersal rates between regions.
Journal of Biogeography, May 18, 2005
The global pattern of bird species richness is known to be strongly associated with actual evapot... more The global pattern of bird species richness is known to be strongly associated with actual evapotranspiration (AET) (Hawkins et al., 2003a), a composite climatic variable describing the simultaneous availability of energy and water (Stephenson, 1990). In cold parts of the world, such as polar and boreal zones, energy represents the limiting component of the interaction, whereas in the tropics, subtropics and warm temperate areas, AET is determined by rainfall. This suggests that diversity at high latitudes is primarily constrained by temperature, whereas in high-energy, low latitudes, bird species richness responds primarily to rainfall patterns. Although a number of mechanisms have been proposed to explain associations between climate and richness, evaluation of the supporting evidence has been inconclusive (Currie et al.,
Evolutionary Biology-new York, Jan 25, 2023
Body size of organisms is often associated with physiological demands and habitat structure. Seve... more Body size of organisms is often associated with physiological demands and habitat structure. Several theories and models have been proposed to explain body size trends across geographical space and evolutionary time. It is proposed that herbivores are larger due to their more voluminous digestive system, allowing a longer retention time of the digested material. Simultaneously, for carnivores, it is expected that the bigger the prey, the larger the predator. Additionally, some body size trends have been attributed to climatic variation across space and habitat structure. Bergmann's Rule proposes that larger endotherms inhabit colder areas, once a larger body size promotes better heat retention due to reduced surface/volume ratio. Similarly, aquatic endotherms are larger than expected, due to analogous physiological demands to endotherms living in colder environments. Here we tested whether body size of the Mustelidae clade can be explained by diet, habitat structure or environmental temperature. We performed phylogenetic regressions to assess the relationships between body size and the aforementioned predictors in 53 species of Mustelidae. We found that neither diet nor temperature were related to body size evolution. However, habitat was related to body size, with semi aquatic species being. Mechanisms involving thermal inertia, predation pressure, better quality resources close to water and bone density are hypotheses that suggest larger body sizes evolution in semi-aquatic vertebrates. We highlight the importance of considering widely accepted ecological traits for large groups, at lower taxonomic levels, in order to expand our understanding of the maintenance of these standards on different scales.
Natureza & Conservacao, 2011
Definitions of Biodiversity that encompass multiple levels of the biological hierarchy are common... more Definitions of Biodiversity that encompass multiple levels of the biological hierarchy are common and fulfill theoretical and conservation expectations. However, these definitions are usually not fully operational because these levels are usually analyzed independently. We understand that the difficulties in integrating concepts and methods for distinct "Fundamental Biodiversity Units" (FBUs) for analyses, including genes, haplotypes or neutral molecular variants, species, biomes or ecosystem, arise both because of operational and conceptual difficulties in dealing with the evolutionary continuum and because of 'sociological' issues regarding how different research traditions in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology deal with these different FBUs. Here we explore some common patterns of geographic variation in FBUs at different hierarchical levels, starting from the conceptual view by which evolution give rises to a continuum of biodiversity. We seek for an integrated methodological and conceptual framework to study FBUs, searching for the relationships and commonalities of concepts and methods traditionally developed to evaluate patterns and processes at a given level of the biological hierarchy. We point out several cases where conceptual and theoretical advances have been made by using an integrated perspective based for FBUs, for the analysis of broad-scale gradients in richness, distance decay similarity and systematic conservation planning. We conclude by stating that the recognition of an integrated approach that takes the evolutionary continuum into account may be an important step to mitigate biodiversity loss.
Folia Geobotanica, Oct 5, 2015
There is considerable uncertainty about if, and when, phylogenetic information is needed to answe... more There is considerable uncertainty about if, and when, phylogenetic information is needed to answer various ecological questions about trait-based ecological studies. It has been recommended that both functional and phylogenetic information should be combined, and some researchers have even suggested that functional information for species should be 'corrected' because species are not phylogenetically independent. Here, we address these issues by identifying key types of questions in functional trait-based ecology and discussing the utility of phylogenetic information for answering them, either as a correction or in combination with functional traits. Phylogenetic analyses are identified as essential to answer questions related to the evolution of adaptations to abiotic and biotic conditions. However, we argue that phylogenetic information is not always relevant for functional trait studies, and should not be incorporated into ecological analyses without clear justification. Phylogenetic relatedness between species should not be considered a bias to be corrected, but rather an evolutionary signal that allows results to be interpreted at different evolutionary scales. Furthermore, if traits are conserved, phylogeny can be used as a proxy for missing
Heredity, Mar 1, 1996
/as, CP 131, 74.00 1-970, Go/an/a, Go/as, Brazil Developments in the analysis of comparative data... more /as, CP 131, 74.00 1-970, Go/an/a, Go/as, Brazil Developments in the analysis of comparative data in evolutionary biology suggest that it is possible to partition the total variance of some quantitative trait into a phylogenetic component, which contains that part of the variation attributed to common ancestry with other species, and a specific component, which results from independent evolution after cladogenesis. In this paper, we analysed the variation in worker body size across 16 neotropical species of stingless bees (Meliponinae), using phylogenetic autocorrelation models to evaluate evolutionary constraints in this complex trait. Body size was defined in a multivariate sense as the first principal component extracted from the covariance matrix of 10 log-transformed morphometric characters. The estimated phylogenetic autoregressive coefficient (p) was equal to 0.495 0.192, indicating that only 24.5 per cent of variability in worker body size can be attributed to inertial phylogenetic effects. This relatively low value of p in bees is to be expected, considering that this complex trait has traditionally been recognized as an expression of worker adaptation related to foraging activity and resource exploitation.
Genetics and Molecular Biology, 2006
Conservation genetics has been focused on the ecological and evolutionary persistence of targets ... more Conservation genetics has been focused on the ecological and evolutionary persistence of targets (species or other intraspecific units), especially when dealing with narrow-ranged species, and no generalized solution regarding the problem of where to concentrate conservation efforts for multiple genetic targets has yet been achieved. Broadly distributed and abundant species allow the identification of evolutionary significant units, management units, phylogeographical units or other spatial patterns in genetic variability, including those generated by effects of habitat fragmentation caused by human activities. However, these genetic units are rarely considered as priority conservation targets in regional conservation planning procedures. In this paper, we discuss a theoretical framework in which target persistence and genetic representation of targets defined using multiple genetic criteria can be explicitly incorporated into the broad-scale reserve network models used to optimize biodiversity conservation based on multiple species data. When genetic variation can be considered discrete in geographical space, the solution is straightforward, and each spatial unit must be considered as a distinct target. But methods for dealing with continuous genetic variation in space are not trivial and optimization procedures must still be developed. We present a simple heuristic and sequential algorithm to deal with this problem by combining multiple networks of local populations of multiple species in which minimum separation distance between conserved populations is a function of spatial autocorrelation patterns of genetic variability within each species.
Frontiers of Biogeography
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
By the end of this century, human-induced climate change and habitat loss may drastically reduce ... more By the end of this century, human-induced climate change and habitat loss may drastically reduce biodiversity, with expected effects on many amphibian lineages. One of these effects is the shift in the geographic distributions of species when tracking suitable climates. Here, we employ a macroecological approach to dynamically model geographic range shifts by coupling ecological niche models and eco-evolutionary mechanisms, aiming to assess the probability of evolutionary rescue (i.e., rapid adaptation) and dispersal under climate change. Evolutionary models estimated the probability of population persistence by adapting to changes in the temperature influenced by precipitation in the following decades, while compensating the fitness reduction and maintaining viable populations in the new climates. In addition, we evaluated emerging patterns of species richness and turnover at the assemblage level. Our approach was able to identify which amphibian populations among 7,193 species at ...
Journal of Biogeography, 2016
Aim Contemporary patterns of species diversity are the result of a hierarchy of natural processes... more Aim Contemporary patterns of species diversity are the result of a hierarchy of natural processes and modern anthropogenic influences. However, studies of these patterns in human-modified systems from a macroecological perspective are lacking. Considering that fish assemblages in reservoirs reflect both longterm evolutionary responses of species and shorter term responses to anthropogenic stressors, we employed a multi-hypothesis approach using different magnitudes of predictors to analyse the processes that drive fish diversity in reservoirs at a broad spatial scale. Location Brazil. Methods We derived species richness from an extensive database of fish inhabiting Neotropical reservoirs, and using multiple regression analysis, we tested seven hypotheses that link species richness to continuous variables associated with regional, local and population components. We analysed the spatial structure using Moran's I autocorrelation coefficients and used spatial eigenvector mapping to explicitly account for the spatial component when testing the hypotheses by multiple regressions. Partial regressions were performed to map the relative contributions of the different components in explaining species richness. Results Predictors related to six hypotheses were retained in the best-fit models, and our data supported the species-energy, metabolic, species-area, species-distance from the source and time of habitat alteration hypotheses. However, the predictions of the population abundance hypothesis (PAH) were not supported by the data. The shared effects of the different components explained the greatest proportion of the variation in species richness, indicating that distinct mechanisms related to these alternative hypotheses interact or are not spatially independent. Main conclusions Our findings indicate that the latitudinal diversity gradient typically displayed by freshwater fish is maintained in human-modified habitats, such as reservoirs, and that multiple mechanisms drive fish diversity in reservoirs over large spatial scales. The lack of support for the PAH implies that mechanisms structuring diversity patterns can be influenced by anthropogenic stressors.
Journal of Biogeography, 2016
AimTo analyse the geographical co‐occurrence among mammal species based on their complete geograp... more AimTo analyse the geographical co‐occurrence among mammal species based on their complete geographical distributions, considering their phylogenetic relationships and body size data. We describe species‐level patterns and test the relative effects of ecological and evolutionary processes in determining species co‐occurrence under the phylogenetic field framework.LocationGlobal.MethodsWe gathered distributional, phylogenetic and body size information for 3697 mammal species. We defined phylogenetic fields of species by estimating the phylogenetic structure of species co‐occurrence within a focal species' range. Likewise, body size structure within focal species' ranges was defined as body size fields. We applied a spatial‐phylogenetic statistical framework to evaluate geographical variation on species fields. Also, we tested the significance of phylogenetic and body size fields based on biogeographically informed null models. Analyses were done for all mammal species as a who...
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, Jan 5, 2016
Species co-occur with different sets of other species across their geographical distribution, whi... more Species co-occur with different sets of other species across their geographical distribution, which can be either closely or distantly related. Such co-occurrence patterns and their phylogenetic structure within individual species ranges represent what we call the species phylogenetic fields (PFs). These PFs allow investigation of the role of historical processes-speciation, extinction and dispersal-in shaping species co-occurrence patterns, in both extinct and extant species. Here, we investigate PFs of large mammalian species during the last 3 Myr, and how these correlate with trends in diversification rates. Using the fossil record, we evaluate species' distributional and co-occurrence patterns along with their phylogenetic structure. We apply a novel Bayesian framework on fossil occurrences to estimate diversification rates through time. Our findings highlight the effect of evolutionary processes and past climatic changes on species' distributions and co-occurrences. Fro...
American Journal of Botany, 2015
Frontiers in Genetics, 2015
Comparative phylogeography has its roots in classical biogeography and, historically, relies on a... more Comparative phylogeography has its roots in classical biogeography and, historically, relies on a pattern-based approach. Here, we present a model-based framework for comparative phylogeography. Our framework was initially developed for statistical phylogeography based on a multi-model inference approach, by coupling ecological niche modeling, coalescent simulation and direct spatio-temporal reconstruction of lineage diffusion using a relaxed random walk model. This multi-model inference framework is particularly useful to investigate the complex dynamics and current patterns in genetic diversity in response to processes operating on multiple taxonomic levels in comparative phylogeography. In addition, because of the lack, or incompleteness of fossil record, the understanding of the role of biogeographical events (vicariance and dispersal routes) in most regions worldwide is barely known. Thus, we believe that the expansion of that framework for multiple species under a comparative approach may give clues on genetic legacies in response to Quaternary climate changes and other biogeographical processes.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2013
Differential coexistence among species underlies geographical patterns of biodiversity. Understan... more Differential coexistence among species underlies geographical patterns of biodiversity. Understanding such patterns has relied either on ecological or historical approaches applied separately. Recently, macroecology and community phylogenetics have tried to integrate both ecological and historical approaches. However, macroecology is mostly non-phylogenetic, whereas community phylogenetics is largely focused on local scales. Here, we propose a conceptual framework to link macroecology and community phylogenetics by exploring the evolutionary context of large-scale species coexistence, introducing the phylogenetic field concept. This is defined as the phylogenetic structure of species co-occurrence within a focal species' geographical range. We developed concepts and methods for analysing phylogenetic fields and applied them to study coexistence patterns of the bat family Phyllostomidae. Our analyses showed that phyllostomid bats coexist mostly with closely related species, revea...
Iheringia. Série Zoologia, 2004
Macroecology of New World carnivores: constraint envelopes and analysis of phylogenetic patterns.... more Macroecology of New World carnivores: constraint envelopes and analysis of phylogenetic patterns. The relationship between body size and geographic range was analyzed for 70 species of terrestrial Carnivora ("fissipeds") of the New World, after the control of phylogenetic patterns in the data using phylogenetic eigenvector regression. The analysis from EcoSim software showed that the variables are related as a triangular envelope. Phylogenetic patterns in data were detected by means of phylogenetic correlograms, and 200 simulations of the phenotypic evolution were also performed over the phylogeny. For body size, the simulations suggested a nonlinear relationship for the evolution of this character along the phylogeny. For geographic range size, the correlogram showed no phylogenetic patterns. A phylogenetic eigenvector regression was performed on original data and on data simulated under Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. Since both characters did not evolve under a simple Brownian motion process, the Type I errors should be around 10%, compatible with other methods to analyze correlated evolution. The significant correlation of the original data (r = 0.38; P < 0.05), as well as the triangular envelope, then indicate ecological and adaptive processes connecting the two variables, such as those proposed in minimum viable population models.
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Papers by Alexandre Diniz