Submitted by Edisangela Bastos (edisangela@ufpa.br) on 2013-11-01T22:03:41Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23898 bytes, checksum: e363e809996cf46ada20da1accfcd9c7 (MD5) Dissertacao_FilogeniaMolecularTaxonomia.pdf: 2655564 bytes, checksum: 82c479b7bb885febd2ccfb8a3d4fbbcb (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Rosa Silva(arosa@ufpa.br) on 2013-11-14T15:10:59Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23898 bytes, checksum: e363e809996cf46ada20da1accfcd9c7 (MD5) Dissertacao_FilogeniaMolecularTaxonomia.pdf: 2655564 bytes, checksum: 82c479b7bb885febd2ccfb8a3d4fbbcb (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-11-14T15:10:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23898 bytes, checksum: e363e809996cf46ada20da1accfcd9c7 (MD5) Dissertacao_FilogeniaMolecularTaxonomia.pdf: 2655564 bytes, checksum: 82c479b7bb885febd2ccfb8a3d4fbbcb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / A Amazônia é considerada a maior floresta tropical contínua do mundo e diversos mecanismos têm sido propostos para tentar explicar a sua alta diversidade biológica. Um dos mecanismos mais discutidos desde sua proposição é a hipótese dos Refúgios, que se baseia na retração da floresta em períodos mais secos, isolando a fauna de florestas em refúgios imersos em uma matriz de vegetação aberta. Essas retrações e subseqüentes expansões em períodos mais mésicos provocariam a interrupção do fluxo gênico entre as populações isoladas e poderiam gerar especiação. Contudo, estudos moleculares recentes indicam que a diversificação de espécies de vertebrados de florestas tropicais provavelmente precede o período pleistocênico, originalmente indicado na hipótese dos Refúgios como o período em que esses eventos teriam ocorrido. A espécie politípica Anolis chrysolepis, juntamente com Anolis bombiceps, foi previamente estudada como um típico exemplo de diversificação gerada pelas flutuações climáticas do Pleistoceno, embora estudos posteriores tenham domonstrado a presença de grande divergência molecular entre parte das subespécies, indicando uma separação mais antiga desses táxons e levantando o questionamento sobre seu status taxonômico. Utilizamos o gene mitocondrial ND2 para investigar as relações filogenéticas entre as subespécies de Anolis chrysolepis e os táxons determinados em estudos anteriores como mais próximos a elas. Além disso, a sua morfologia e o seu status taxonômico foram revisados, a fim de verificar a congruência entre os dados morfológicos e moleculares, determinando se os táxons previamente reconhecidos morfologicamente são espécies válidas. Com base nos dois conjuntos de dados, nós elevamos as cinco subespécies do grupo Anolis chrysolepis ao status de espécies, diagnosticamos cada uma delas com comentários sobre as principais diferenças morfológicas entre as espécies irmãs e fornecemos novos dados de distribuição. / The Amazon forest is the largest continumm tropical forest around the world and several mecanisms have been proposed to explain its high biological diversity. The Refuge Hypothesis is one of the most debated explanations used and is based on the contraction of forested areas during dry periods, restricting populations to forest refugia. Forests expand during wet periods and these climatic and vegetational oscillations during the Pleistocene would be responsible for speciation and distribution patterns seen in Amazonian species. However, recent molecular phylogenetic studies confront this notion by indicating that most divergences among tropical forest vertebrate species predate the Pleistocene period. The Anolis chrysolepis clade, along with Anolis bombiceps, was previously studied and cited as a classic example of Pleistocene speciation, but recent studies showed substantial molecular divergence in the complex indicating that further studies about the subspecies relationships will demonstrate they are distinct species. We used the mithocondrial gene (ND2) to estimate phylogenetic relationships among the Anolis chrysolepis subspecies and the taxa previously hypothetized as related to them. In addition, their morphology and taxonomy status were revisited in order to confirm the congruence among the molecular and morphological datasets, determining if morphologically defined taxa are valid species. Based on both datasets, we elevate the five subspecies of Anolis chrysolepis to species status, diagnosticating each one of them with comments about the main morphological differences between the sister taxon and providing new distribution data.

Submitted by Edisangela Bastos (edisangela@ufpa.br) on 2013-11-14T17:56:38Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23898 bytes, checksum: e363e809996cf46ada20da1accfcd9c7 (MD5) Tese_AnaliseEvolutivaMorfologia.pdf: 1319886 bytes, checksum: bb7468664b0ac7be5b3a196d233b3e1a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Rosa Silva(arosa@ufpa.br) on 2013-11-21T17:09:21Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23898 bytes, checksum: e363e809996cf46ada20da1accfcd9c7 (MD5) Tese_AnaliseEvolutivaMorfologia.pdf: 1319886 bytes, checksum: bb7468664b0ac7be5b3a196d233b3e1a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-11-21T17:09:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23898 bytes, checksum: e363e809996cf46ada20da1accfcd9c7 (MD5) Tese_AnaliseEvolutivaMorfologia.pdf: 1319886 bytes, checksum: bb7468664b0ac7be5b3a196d233b3e1a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / A tese compreende 3 capítulos. No primeiro capítulo apresento os resultados sobre a associação entre similaridade morfológica entre as espécies e suas relações filogenéticas, para 35 espécies que se distribuem nas áreas continentais e 59 no Caribe. Determino quais espécies continentais agrupam com as classes de ecomorfos propostos para as espécies caribenhas, investigo os casos de similaridade morfológica entre as espécies continentais, e verifico se existem agrupamentos entre as espécies morfologicamente similares. No capítulo dois, analiso evolutivamente a relação entre morfologia e ecologia para 19 espécies continentais de Anolis. No capítulo três, um estudo de caso, caracterizo as estruturas do habitat e outros atributos ecológicos de três espécies que ocorrem na Amazônia brasileira e busco associar as diferenças morfológicas entre elas com as diferenças de habitat, à luz dos resultados encontrados nos capítulos anteriores e em outros estudos ecomorfológicos.

Performance is key to survival. From day-to-day foraging events, to reproductive activities, to life-or-death crises, how well an organism performs these tasks can determine success or failure. Selection, therefore, both natural and sexual, act upon performance, and performance demands on individuals shape a population’s morphological and physiological trait distributions. While studies of morphological adaptations to ecological pressures implicitly center on the idea that responses to selection improve performance via changes in morphology, the relationships between morphology, performance, and fitness are not always well understood. In this dissertation, I investigate these relationships explicitly, as well as determine the effects that different ecological and genetic contexts have on selection and how populations respond to performance pressures. Using a model of lizard locomotor performance, I address three issues that may impact selection on performance that are often overlooked in performance studies. First, performance is not a static trait. Rather, individuals possess a range of performance abilities or intensities that can be expressed as needed. Using a novel, individual-based, quantitative genetic simulation model, I demonstrate the effects of variable performance expression and genetic constraints on how a population experiences and responds to selection on sprint and endurance performance. Second, sex differences in performance are expected in sexually dimorphic species, but empirical evidence for this is lacking. To this end, I measured and analyzed multivariate morphology and performance in Anolis carolinensis to identify sex-specific patterns in functional morphology and functional trade-offs within a broad suite of performance traits. Third, intralocus sexual conflict should constrain the evolution of the multivariate performance phenotype in both sexes. By extending the simulation model to include correlated trait inheritance between sexes and sex-specific selection on certain performance traits, I demonstrate the extent to which this sexual conflict constrains performance evolution. In combining studies of natural populations with simulation studies of selection, this dissertation embraces the complexity of performance to address the multiple contributing factors and constraints on performance evolution, and demonstrates the importance of accounting for such complexity when studying animal performance.

Adaptive radiation – the proliferation of species from a single ancestor and diversification into many ecologically different forms – has long been heralded as an important process in the generation of phenotypic diversity. However, the early stages of adaptive radiation are notoriously elusive to observe and study. In this dissertation, I capitalize on communities of introduced non-native Anolis lizards as analogues of early stage adaptive radiations. In Chapter II, I begin by reviewing the concept of “ecological opportunity” – a classic hypothesis put forward as a potential key to understanding when and how adaptive radiation occurs. In Chapter III, I investigate the mechanisms which allow for coexistence and community assembly among ecologically-similar species. To do this I investigate range dynamics and assembly patterns of introduced anoles on the oceanic island of Bermuda. I discover that interspecific partitioning of the structural environment facilitates species coexistence, however the order of species assembly was an important predictor of final community composition. In Chapter IV, I then investigate how interspecific interactions between coexisting species may drive phenotypic divergence. This is the process of character displacement, which has been widely hypothesized to be an important mechanism driving phenotypic divergence in adaptive radiations. To do this I investigate sympatric and allopatric populations of introduced Cuban brown anoles (Anolis sagrei) and Puerto Rican crested anoles (A. cristatellus) in Miami FL, USA. I identify morphological shifts in sympatry, driven by divergence in habitat use and decreases in abundance. This study provides evidence of how selection on both ecologically and sexually-important traits can both drive phenotypic divergence during character displacement. Finally, in Chapter V, after taking advantage of non-native species as model eco-evolutionary systems in previous chapters, I investigate the potentially harmful effects that their presence may have on vulnerable native biodiversity. To do this I investigate the conservation risk posed by newly-discovered populations of A. sagrei on Bermuda to Critically Endangered endemic Bermuda skinks (Plestiodon longirostris). Through a detailed analysis of habitat use, diet, population size, and morphology of A. sagrei on Bermuda, we conclude it likely poses a high conservation threat to P. longirostris through interspecific competition.

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Surveys and vegetation analyses were used to determine the known distribution and the characteristics of the habitat utilised by Anolis sagrei in Taiwan. Sampled lizards were used for morphological comparisons, and to investigate the reproductive biology of this species in Taiwan. The results of this study indicate that the distribution of A. sagrei in Taiwan is extensive (≥237 ha) in Chiayi City and County (southwestern study site) and scattered (≥8 ha) in Hualien City and County (eastern study site). These lizards were mostly found in open sunny degraded man-made habitats. Although some variations were noted in the comparisons between the A. sagrei collected from the two study sites, it was concluded that the two populations likely have the same founder population. The reproductive biology study indicated that photoperiod and the associated temperatures determine the reproductive cycles in A. sagrei. It also demonstrated that reproduction in this species is energetically demanding. / Nature Conservation / MSc.(Nature Conservation)

Surveys and vegetation analyses were used to determine the known distribution and the characteristics of the habitat utilised by Anolis sagrei in Taiwan. Sampled lizards were used for morphological comparisons, and to investigate the reproductive biology of this species in Taiwan. The results of this study indicate that the distribution of A. sagrei in Taiwan is extensive (≥237 ha) in Chiayi City and County (southwestern study site) and scattered (≥8 ha) in Hualien City and County (eastern study site). These lizards were mostly found in open sunny degraded man-made habitats. Although some variations were noted in the comparisons between the A. sagrei collected from the two study sites, it was concluded that the two populations likely have the same founder population. The reproductive biology study indicated that photoperiod and the associated temperatures determine the reproductive cycles in A. sagrei. It also demonstrated that reproduction in this species is energetically demanding. / Nature Conservation / MSc.(Nature Conservation)