Data from: Biogeography of curimatid fishes reveals multiple lowland-upland river transitions and differential diversification in the Neotropics (Teleostei, Curimatidae)

The Neotropics harbors a megadiverse ichthyofauna comprising over
6300 species with approximately 80% in just three taxonomic
orders within the clade Characiphysi. This highly diverse group has
evolved in tropical South America over tens to hundreds of millions of
years influenced mostly by re‐arrangements of river drainages in lowland
and upland systems. In this study, we investigate patterns of spatial
diversification in Neotropical freshwater fishes in the family
Curimatidae, a species‐rich clade of the order Characiformes.
Specifically, we examined ancestral areas, dispersal events, and shifts in
species richness using spatially explicit biogeographic and
macroevolutionary models to determine whether lowlands–uplands serve as
museums or cradles of diversification for curimatids. We used fossil
information to estimate divergence times in BEAST, multiple
time‐stratified models of geographic range evolution in BioGeoBEARS, and
alternative models of geographic state‐dependent speciation and extinction
in GeoHiSSE. Our results suggest that the most recent common ancestor of
curimatids originated in the Late Cretaceous likely in lowland
paleodrainages of northwestern South America. Dispersals from lowland to
upland river basins of the Brazilian and Guiana shields occurred
repeatedly across independently evolving lineages in the Cenozoic.
Colonization of upland drainages was often coupled with increased rates of
net diversification in species‐rich genera such
as Cyphocharax and Steindachnerina. Our
findings demonstrate that colonization of novel aquatic environments at
higher elevations is associated with an increased rate of diversification,
although this pattern is clade‐dependent and driven mostly by allopatric
speciation. Curimatids reinforce an emerging perspective that Amazonian
lowlands act as a museum by accumulating species along time, whereas the
transitions to uplands stimulate higher net diversification rates and
lineage diversification.