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| Author(s): |
Ana Paula Aprígio Assis
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Biociências (IBIOC/SB) |
| Defense date: | 2011-04-15 |
| Examining board members: |
Gabriel Henrique Marroig Zambonato;
João Miguel de Barros Alexandrino
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| Advisor: | Gabriel Henrique Marroig Zambonato |
| Abstract | |
The evolutionary history of animals is highly influenced by the history of the environment where these animals live. The Atlantic rainforest is one of the most diverse in the world, and the second largest forest in the Neotropics. The biogeographical history of this forest is complex, and numerous factors might have played a role in the diversification of the biota. This dissertation has studied the patterns of distribution of the genetics and morphological variation in Didelphis aurita, a Didelphidae marsupial, endemic from this forest. This study aims to clarify the biogeographical events that have been important in the diversification of the Atlantic biota. D. aurita distribution is concordant with the forest distribution, going from the north of Rio Grande do Norte state to the south of Rio Grande do Sul state. The results have showed a very diverging population in the northeast distribution (Alagoas and Pernambuco states), and both molecular and morphological divergences indicate that it might be a different species. Moreover, both species might have very low or none gene flow between them. The phylogenetic relationship between this population with the other two species (D. aurita and D. marsupialis), cannot be solved. Even so, the separation event has been dated about 500-800 hundreds years ago, in the Quaternary period. Seeing that both Neotropical forests (Atlantic and Amazonian forests) have experienced several expansions and retractions events in this period, it has been suggested that the climatic dynamics of this period might have played a key role in the divergence of the three species. Moreover, D. aurita (excluding the Northeast population) has been studied with the purpose of testing the Refugee hypothesis in this forest. The genetic and morphological and molecular variations patterns are in agreement with several of this Hypothesis premises. However, the dating of the expansion event is not in agreement with the hypothesis, once it\'s much older than expected. Moreover, simulated data showed that this Refugee tests based in such simplistic assumptions might not be applicable to the history of the Atlantic forest. In this way, even though there are evidences supporting that the Quaternary climate oscillations have been important for this group, it is necessary to evaluate if this demographic expansion is really due to the cyclic glaciations events, and hence evaluate the roll of the Refugee hypothesis for this population. (AU) | |