Congruência espacial das áreas de regionalização e endemismo na mata atlântica

Abstract

How contemporary geographic patterns of species diversity are formed is still an unresolved question in biogeography and ecology. The Atlantic Forest is one of the most threatened phytogeographic domains in the world and one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. The high species richness and endemism in the Atlantic Forest are generally attributed to topographical (i.e. elevation ranging from sea level to 2,000 m above sea level) and latitudinal (i.e. 25° extension) complexity, and current and past climatic variations. Although delimitations of endemic and biogeographic areas have been proposed in the Atlantic Forest, they were defined separately for birds, frogs, harvestmen, plants and snakes. However, there is no consensus on whether the main events affecting the rate of diversification and dispersion, such as topography (e.g. mountain uplift), rivers as barriers, past and current climatic fluctuations, are congruent for different biological groups. Here, I performed a literature review to assess the congruences between the delimitation of endemic and regionalization areas for different biological groups (i.e. anurans, birds, mammals, and snakes) in the Atlantic Forest. The first articles delimiting ecoregions or areas of endemism were published in the early 1970s, with a significant increase in the number of publications from 2000 onwards. The largest number of works found refers to the group of birds while plants and harvestmen were the groups with the smallest number of articles. It was noted that the ArcGIS and the R were the programs most used in the manipulation of data and maps obtained. It was seen that mountain ranges, rivers, current and historical variations, showed great influence on the distribution of groups in the Atlantic Forest, generating a pattern of congruence that was noticed in five major regions: Pernambuco, Dry Forests/Bahia Interior Forests, Coastal Bahia, Serra do Mar and Paraná/Araucaria Forest.