New species of Liolaemus (Reptilia, Squamata, Liolaemini) of the Liolaemus donosobarrosi clade from northwestern Patagonia, Neuquén province, Argentina.

Two new species of the Liolaemus donosobarrosi clade are described. Liolaemus tirantii sp. nov. and Liolaemus calliston sp. nov. differ from other members of their clade by a combination of coloration characters, morphometric and molecular traits. Liolaemus tirantii sp. nov. is known from three localities separated only a few kilometers from each other and Liolaemus calliston sp. nov. is known only from the type locality. Both species inhabit a region strongly impacted by oil and gas extraction but their conservation status is unknown.

Conservation assessments in climate change scenarios: spatial perspectives for present and future in two Pristidactylus (Squamata: Leiosauridae) lizards from Argentina.

The consequences of global climate change can already be seen in many physical and biological systems and these effects could change the distribution of suitable areas for a wide variety of organisms to the middle of this century. We analyzed the current habitat use and we projected the suitable area of present conditions into the geographical space of future scenarios (2050), to assess and quantify whether future climate change would affect the distribution and size of suitable environments in two Pristidactylus lizard species. Comparing the habitat use and future forecasts of the two studied species, P. achalensis showed a more restricted use of available resource units (RUs) and a moderate reduction of the potential future area. On the contrary, P. nigroiugulus uses more available RUs and has a considerable area decrease for both future scenarios. These results suggest that both species have a moderately different trend towards reducing available area of suitable habitats, the persistent localities for both 2050 CO2 concentration models, and in the available RUs used. We discussed the relation between size and use of the current habitat, changes in future projections along with the protected areas from present-future and the usefulness of these results in conservation plans. This work illustrates how ectothermic organisms might have to face major changes in their availability suitable areas as a consequence of the effect of future climate change.

A new lizard species of the Phymaturus patagonicus group (Squamata: Liolaemini) from northern Patagonia, Neuquén, Argentina.

The integrative taxonomy framework allows developing robust hypotheses of species limits based on the integration of results from different data sets and analytical methods. In this work, we test a candidate species hypothesis previously suggested based on molecular data, with geometric and traditional morphometrics analyses (multivariate and univariate). This new lizard species is part of the Phymaturus patagonicus group (payuniae clade) that is distributed in Neuquén and Mendoza provinces (Argentina). Our results showed that Phymaturus rahuensis sp. nov. differs from the other species of the payuniae clade by a higher number of midbody scales, and fewer supralabials scales, finger lamellae and toe lamellae. Also, its multidimensional spaces, both based on continuous lineal variables and geometric morphometrics (shape) characters, do not overlap with those of the other species in this clade. The results of the morphometric and geometric morphometric analyses presented here, coupled with previously published molecular data, represent three independent lines of evidence that support the diagnosis of this new taxon.

Reptiles of Chubut province, Argentina: richness, diversity, conservation status and geographic distribution maps.

An accurate estimation of species and population geographic ranges is essential for species-focused studies and conservation and management plans. Knowledge of the geographic distributions of reptiles from Patagonian Argentina is in general limited and dispersed over manuscripts from a wide variety of topics. We completed an extensive review of reptile species of central Patagonia (Argentina) based on information from a wide variety of sources. We compiled and checked geographic distribution records from published literature and museum records, including extensive new data from the LJAMM-CNP (CENPAT-CONICET) herpetological collection. Our results show that there are 52 taxa recorded for this region and the highest species richness was seen in the families Liolaemidae and Dipsadidae with 31 and 10 species, respectively. The Patagónica was the phytogeographic province most diverse in species and Phymaturus was the genus of conservation concern most strongly associated with it. We present a detailed species list with geographical information, richness species, diversity analyses with comparisons across phytogeographical provinces, conservation status, taxonomic comments and distribution maps for all of these taxa.

Integrative taxonomy in the Liolaemus fitzingerii complex (Squamata: Liolaemini) based on morphological analyses and niche modeling.

It has long been considered sufficient a single method or only a descriptive diagnosis to propose a new species. Recently, many works have proposed new theoretical paradigms to consider multiple sources of evidence to support the hypothesis of new taxa within an integrative approach. Despite this, many new described species continue to be merely descriptive and without any reproducible statistical analysis to support these descriptions. We tested whether five species described as members of a species complex of the lizard genus Liolaemus from Patagonia, can be differentiated based on classical morphometric analyses and ecological niche modeling. Individuals were sampled from their type localities. Our results showed that the univariate tests and Principal Component Analyses (PCA) were more accurate to differentiate species compared to the Linear Discriminant Analyses (LDA). However, there were almost no morphometric differences between two of the analyzed species. Major differences were found in bioclimatic variables of four of the species through Maxent ENMs and PCA using the original worldclim variables. Our results partially support the hypothesis that species can be differentiated by classical morphometric analyses, and found a strong support for the hypothesis that these taxa can be differentiated through their bioclimatic niches. These two approaches based on repeatable statistical basis, can supplement qualitative descriptive diagnoses of new species of the genus Liolaemus. 

A new lizard of the Phymaturus genus (Squamata: Liolaemidae) from Sierra Grande, northeastern Patagonia, Argentina.

A new species of lizard of the saxicolous and viviparous genus Phymaturus from Patagonia is described. The new species is a member of the Phymaturus patagonicus species group distributed on volcanic plateaus, mountains or rocky outcrops of southern Argentina. Phymaturus yachanana sp. nov. differs from the other members of the patagonicus group by a dorsal pattern of small and medium-sized white spots on a brown background, the number of scales around the midbody, genetic differences in mitochondrial and nuclear markers, and allopatric geographic distribution in an isolated group of hills. As other species of the group, the new species is viviparous and herbivorous.