The correspondence between environmental similarity and geographical sympatry in Uromastyx species
Marwa Kechnebbou
Jorge M. Lobo
Mohsen Chammem
10.6084/m9.figshare.11111747.v1
https://brill.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_correspondence_between_environmental_similarity_and_geographical_sympatry_in_Uromastyx_species/11111747
<p>Estimating the realized and potential distribution of
species has become a very active field of research with capacity to propose
likely speciation mechanisms. Here, environmental variables and point locality
data derived from several sources were used to examine the concordance between
geographical distributions and environmental niches derived from occurrences
for eleven species of the genus <i>Uromastyx</i> (Reptilia, Agamidae). Our
results indicate that the degree of geographical overlap is definitively and
statistically lower than the degree of environmental similarity. This
reinforces the hypothesis that speciation process within the genus <i>Uromastyx</i>
will be mainly based on geographical isolation. However, the environmental
divergence among some groups of species cannot be excluded; high environmental
distances can be obtained for some related species and the environmental
gradient represented by two unique climatic variables allows discriminating
some species among which an ecological or environmental segregation would be a
plausible explanation.</p>
2019-12-03 07:19:34
distribution models
ecological speciation
environmental niches
geographical distributions
sympatry
Ecology not elsewhere classified