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Effects Of Riverine Barriers On Avian Evolution In The Amazon Basin, Andre Eugene Moncrieff
Effects Of Riverine Barriers On Avian Evolution In The Amazon Basin, Andre Eugene Moncrieff
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
The high biodiversity found in the Amazon Basin has long captivated the attention of naturalists and evolutionary biologists seeking to explain its origins. Early observations by Alfred Wallace highlighted the role of rivers in delimiting the geographic ranges of many species; furthermore, where rivers narrow towards their headwaters, he noted that some species cross rivers freely. A major goal of this dissertation is to investigate how these and other observations about riverine barriers might inform our understanding of how speciation unfolds in Amazonia. My approach involved generating genomic data with dense geographic sampling for manakins in the genus Lepidothrix, …
Insights Into The Speciation Process From Genomic And Phenotypic Analysis Of An Avian Hybrid Zone In Amazonia, Glaucia Christina Del-Rio
Insights Into The Speciation Process From Genomic And Phenotypic Analysis Of An Avian Hybrid Zone In Amazonia, Glaucia Christina Del-Rio
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Understanding the outcome of secondary contact is essential to shed light on the mechanisms governing species formation and maintenance. In Amazonia, closely related bird taxa with limited dispersal abilities are often separated by rivers, which presumably act as dispersal barriers. However, at the headwaters, rivers cease to be dispersal barriers, and this generates opportunities for secondary contact. In my dissertation, I studied genomic mechanisms associated with phenotypic differences, mitochondrial DNA structure, and putative reproductive barriers between two hybridizing Amazonian bird species in the genus Rhegmatorhina, a group of antbirds that find their arthropod prey exclusively by following army-ant swarms. …