Evolutionary implications of reduced body size in the tiny frog Euparkerella (Craugastoride, Holoadeninae).

• Grant number: 15/11556-5
• Support type: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Effective date (Start): October 17, 2015
• Effective date (End): December 16, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Morphology of Recent Groups
• Principal researcher: João Miguel de Barros Alexandrino
• Grantee: Luciana Ardenghi Fusinatto
• Supervisor abroad: David Vieites Rodriguez
• Home Institution: Instituto de Ciências Ambientais, Químicas e Farmacêuticas (ICAQF). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Diadema. Diadema , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN), Spain
• Associated to the scholarship: 13/21174-7 - Small-bodied vertebrates as tools for fine-scale diversification studies: the case of Euparkerella in Brazilian Atlantic Forest, BP.PD

Abstract

Miniaturized vertebrates with microendemic pattern of distribution have been recurrently observed in tropical forests, raising many developmental and evolutionary questions. We have studied this phenomenon for a tiny frog, Euparkerella, endemic to Atlantic Rainforest, and recognized deep molecular divergences between species, cryptic diversity and population structure at fine scale. Our aim now is to improve the population genetics study with more samples and analytical tools, focusing in landscape and niche modelling, to best understand microevolutionary process associated to miniaturization. Additionally, a new morphofunctional component will be added. We will generate microtomography images to investigate osteological constrains to minute body sizes in three ways: i) phylogenetic; ii) taxonomic; and iii) populational. We expect to integrate all approaches to have a multi-scale panorama of evolutionary implications of miniaturization.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

FUSINATTO, LUCIANA ARDENGHI; DINIZ, BRUNO LAMY T.; DE SIQUEIRA, ANDREZA SOARES; VAN SLUYS, MONIQUE; SEQUEIRA, FERNANDO; DUARTE ROCHA, CARLOS F.. Living in a tiny world: reproductive biology and population ecology of the Neotropical miniature frog Euparkerella aff. brasiliensis (Terraranae, Strabomantidae). Amphibia-Reptilia, v. 41, n. 2, p. 201-213, MAY 2020. (15/11557-1, 15/11556-5, 13/21174-7)