Temporal and spatial diversification along the Amazonia-Cerrado transition in Neotropical treefrogs of the Boana albopunctata species group.

Despite extensive research on biodiversity in Neotropical forests, biodiversity in seasonally dry, open biomes in South America has been underestimated until recently. We leverage a widespread group, Boana albopunctata, to uncover cryptic lineages and investigate the timing of diversification in Neotropical anurans with a focus on dry diagonal biomes (Cerrado, Caatinga and Chaco) and the ecotone between Amazonia and the Cerrado. We inferred a multilocus phylogeny of the B. albopunctata species group that includes 15 of 18 described species, recovered two cryptic species, and reconstructed the timing of diversification among species distributed across multiple South American biomes. One new potential species (B. aff. steinbachi), sampled in the Amazonian state of Acre, clustered within the B. calcara-fasciata species complex and is close to B. steinbachi. A second putative new species (B. aff. multifasciata), sampled in the Amazonia-Cerrado ecotone, is closely related to B. multifasciata. Lastly, we place a recently identified Cerrado lineage (B. aff. albopuncata) into the B. albopunctata species group phylogeny for the first time. Our ancestral range reconstruction showed that species in the B. albopuctata group likely dispersed from Amazonia-Cerrado into the dry-diagonal and Atlantic Forest. Intraspecies demography showed, for both B. raniceps and B. albopunctata, signs of rapid expansion across the dry diagonal. Similarly, for one clade of B. multifasciata, our analyses support an invasion of the Cerrado from Amazonia, followed by a rapid expansion across the open diagonal biomes. Thus, our study recovers several recent divergences along the Amazonia-Cerrado ecotone in northern Brazil. Tectonic uplift and erosion in the late Miocene and climate oscillations in the Pleistocene corresponded with estimated divergence times in the dry diagonal and Amazonia-Cerrado ecotone. Our study highlights the importance of these threatened open formations in the generation of biodiversity in the Neotropics.

Assessing model adequacy leads to more robust phylogeographic inference.

Phylogeographic studies base inferences on large data sets and complex demographic models, but these models are applied in ways that could mislead researchers and compromise their inference. Researchers face three challenges associated with the use of models: (i) 'model selection', or the identification of an appropriate model for analysis; (ii) 'evaluation of analytical results', or the interpretation of the biological significance of the resulting parameter estimates, delimitations, and topologies; and (iii) 'model evaluation', or the use of statistical approaches to assess the fit of the model to the data. The field collectively invests most of its energy in point (ii) without considering the other points; we argue that attention to points (i) and (iii) is essential to phylogeographic inference.