Diversidade genética e estrutura populacional de Anolis fuscoauratus entre Amazônia e Mata Atlântica
Forest connections. Mito-nuclear discordance. Phylogeography. Pleistocene. Population structure.
Climatic and landscape changes over millions of years have shaped patterns of genetic structure and diversity in animals and plants of South American tropical forests. In this study, we investigated the role of historical forest dynamics in the evolutionary processes underlying current genetic variation of Anolis fuscoauratus, a lizard widely distributed across the Amazon and Atlantic Forests. We used multilocus genetic data, including one mitochondrial and four nuclear markers, obtained from 95 samples across the species’ range. The results reveal a complex evolutionary history, characterized by strong incongruence between mitochondrial and nuclear loci. Temporal estimates indicate that the main clades diverged, on average, around 2 million years ago. Together, these patterns suggest recent population divergence associated with Pleistocene forest dynamics, in which the rapid coalescence of mitochondrial lineages contrasts with the retention of ancestral polymorphisms in nuclear markers, indicating historical connectivity among populations now isolated in the Amazon and Atlantic Forests.