Population divergence associated with spatial asynchrony in precipitation in neotropical frogs

Aim: To test the role of asynchrony in precipitation patterns among populations –a proxy for asynchronous breeding– as a driver of intraspecific genetic divergence across 38 species of Neotropical frogs. In addition, to examine whether regions with more asynchronous precipitation regimes across space have higher frog species richness and have experienced greater speciation rates than regions with more spatially synchronous precipitation regimes.
Location: Central and South America
Taxon: Anurans
Methods: For microevolutionary analyses, we assessed the relationship between spatial asynchrony in precipitation and mtDNA genetic divergence accounting for ecological connectivity using multiple regression and phylogenetic meta-analyses. For macroevolutionary analyses, we assessed the relationship between species richness, speciation rates estimated from a comprehensive molecular phylogeny, and the degree of spatial asynchrony in precipitation using generalized linear models.
Results and Main ...