Cristiano de Campos Nogueira

University of São Paulo | USP · Department of Ecology (IB)

Aim: To analyse ranges of endemic squamates and anurans in the Cerrado hotspot, searching for coincident distributional patterns in two ecologically distinct clades, and proposing a testable and comprehensive regionalization scheme for the richest and most threatened savanna on the planet. Location: Cerrado region, central South America. Methods: W...

Aim To analyze impacts of habitat loss on evolutionary diversity and to test widely used biodiversity metrics as surrogates for phylogenetic diversity, we study spatial and taxonomic patterns of phylogenetic diversity in a wide‐ranging endemic Neotropical snake lineage. Location South America and the Antilles. Methods We updated distribution maps...

AimAlthough most reptiles are oviparous, viviparity is a common mode of reproduction in squamates and has evolved multiple times in different lineages. We test two prevailing hypotheses regarding the biogeography of reptile reproductive modes to evaluate the selective forces driving the evolution of viviparity in snakes. The cold climate hypothesis...

Aim The widespread megadiverse Neotropical snake family Dipsadidae occurs in a large range of diverse habitats. Thus it represents an excellent model to study the diversification of Neotropical biota. Herein, by generating a time-calibrated species-level phylogeny, we investigate the origin and historical biogeography of Dipsadidae and test if its...

Documenting species distribution is essential to extinction risk asessments and subsequent conservation actions. Historical records are thus essential to understand how species are distributed and how their range has changed over time. However, using historical records might contribute to overestimating the species current range and misrepresent th...

Effective, resilient and strategic protected area networks are essential to protect biodiversity and human welfare, especially in vulnerable biodiversity hotspots. This is the case in the Brazilian Cerrado, the richest tropical savanna, and a deforestation front worldwide. Worryingly, the rate of habitat conversion in Cerrado greatly reduces opport...

Protected Areas (PAs) are the cornerstone of biodiversity conservation. Here, we collated distributional data for >14,000 (~70% of) species of amphibians and reptiles (herpetofauna) to perform a global assessment of the conserva- tion effectiveness of PAs using species distribution models. Our analyses reveal that >91% of herpetofauna species are c...

Comprehensive assessments of species’ extinction risks have documented the extinction crisis and underpinned strategies for reducing those risks. Global assessments reveal that, among tetrapods, 40.7% of amphibians, 25.4% of mammals and 13.6% of birds are threatened with extinction. Because global assessments have been lacking, reptiles have been o...

Comprehensive assessments of species’ extinction risks have documented the extinction crisis and underpinned strategies for reducing those risks. Global assessments reveal that, among tetrapods, 40.7% of amphibians, 25.4% of mammals and 13.6% of birds are threatened with extinction. Because global assessments have been lacking, reptiles have been o...

The search for coincident regionalization patterns is a central quest in biogeography since biogeographical units are essential to understand the distribution and evolutionary history of biotas. Biogeographical units are the result of processes such as vicariance, where barriers divide ancestral ranges, which can alter their species richness and co...

Aim Cross‐taxonomic congruence in biodiversity patterns is key to understanding the main drivers of community structure, for biogeographical regionalization and to guide conservation. We aim to map the patterns of phylogenetic turnover and disentangle the geographical and environmental factors that drive the phylogenetic composition of distinct fau...

Our knowledge of the conservation status of reptiles, the most diverse class of terrestrial vertebrates, has improved dramatically over the past decade, but still lags behind that of the other tetrapod groups. Here, we conduct the first comprehensive evaluation (~92% of the world's ~1714 described species) of the conservation 1 Joint senior authors...

Aim Vicariance has often been invoked to explain bioregionalization patterns in the Neotropics. Using a revised point locality data for endemic species, we aimed to test for the first time the predictions of the vicariance model in shaping biogeographical regions for endemic snakes in the Atlantic Forest (AF) megadiverse hotspot. Location South Am...

Apostolepis goiasensis and Apostolepis intermedia

Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) are sites that contribute significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity. The purpose of the Guidelines for using A Global Standard for the Identification of Key Biodiversity Areas is to ensure that KBA identification is based on consistent, scientifically rigorous yet practical methods. These KBA Guidelines p...

Factors driving the spatial configuration of centres of endemism have long been a topic of broad interest and debate. Due to different eco‐evolutionary processes, these highly biodiverse areas may harbour different amounts of ancient and recently diverged organisms (paleo‐ and neo‐endemism, respectively). Patterns of endemism still need to be measu...

Lygophis paucidens Hoge, 1952 is a rare Neotropical snake, previously mapped using only a few individuals in five localities. Herein we update and discuss the distribution and conservation status of L. paucidens within major Neo-tropical ecoregions, providing previously unavailable data on distribution and habitat use. We compiled and mapped point...

Accurate and detailed species distribution maps are fundamental for documenting and interpreting biological diversity. For snakes, an ecologically diverse group of reptiles, syntheses and detailed data on distribution patterns remain scarce. We present the first comprehensive collection of detailed, voucher-based, point-locality, range maps for all...

We evaluated the taxonomic status of snakes from the Atractus emmeli species complex (composed by A. boettgeri, A. emmeli, A. paravertebralis, and A. taeniatus) on the basis of concordance between quantitative (meristics and morphometrics) and qualitative (pholidosis, color pattern, and hemipenis) analyses of morphological characters, in combinatio...

To understand global patterns of diversity, we need to understand how large-scale biogeographical patterns are influenced by historical and ecological aspects. Thus it is important to consider differences between intra-clade lineages and how these shape current distribution and diversity. We map and document richness and macrohabitat use in two ma...

Aim Understanding the mechanisms determining species richness is a primary goal of biogeography. Richness patterns of sub‐groups within a taxon are usually assumed to be driven by similar processes. However, if richness of distinct ecological strategies respond differently to the same processes, inferences made for an entire taxon may be misleading...

A new species of the lizard genus Stenocercus Duméril & Bibron, 1837 is described based on six specimens from Serra da Canastra, Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil. Similar to S. tricristatus (Duméril, 1851), S. dumerilii (Steindachner, 1867), S. quinarius Nogueira & Rodrigues, 2006, and S. squarrosus Nogueira & Rodrigues, 2006, the new species has...

Aim: Variation in body size across animal species underlies most ecological and evolutionary processes shaping local‐ and large‐scale patterns of biodiversity. For well over a century, climatic factors have been regarded as primary sources of natural selection on animal body size, and hypotheses such as Bergmann's rule (the increase of body size wi...

Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) are sites that contribute significantly to the global persistence of biodiversity. A Global Standard for the Identification of Key Biodiversity Areas (IUCN, 2016, hereafter the KBA Standard) provides quantitative criteria and associated thresholds for identifying KBAs in an objective, repeatable and transparent way. Th...

A avaliação dos répteis brasileiros foi coordenada pelo Centro Nacional de Pesquisa e Conservação de Répteis e Anfíbios (RAN), que avaliou todas as espécies continentais de Testudines (tartarugas, cágados e jabutis - 31 espécies), Crocodylia (jacarés - 6 espécies) e Squamata (lagartos, serpentes e anfisbênias - 690 espécies), e pelo Centro Nacional...

p>In the version of this Article originally published, grant no. 2015/20215-7 for C.N. was omitted from the Acknowledgements section. This has now been corrected in all versions of the Article.</p

Motivation We generated a novel database of Neotropical snakes (one of the world's richest herpetofauna) combining the most comprehensive, manually compiled distribution dataset with publicly available data. We assess, for the first time, the diversity patterns for all Neotropical snakes as well as sampling density and sampling biases. Main types...

Aim: Small geographic ranges make species especially prone to extinction from anthropogenic disturbances or natural stochastic events. We assemble and analyse a comprehensive dataset of all the world's lizard species and identify the species with the smallest ranges—those known only from their type localities. We compare them to wide-ranging specie...

The distributions of amphibians, birds and mammals have underpinned global and local conservation priorities, and have been fundamental to our understanding of the determinants of global biodiversity. In contrast, the global distributions of reptiles, representing a third of terrestrial vertebrate diversity, have been unavailable. This prevented th...

In this Article originally published, owing to a technical error, the author ‘Laurent Chirio’ was mistakenly designated as a corresponding author in the HTML version, the PDF was correct. This error has now been corrected in the HTML version. Further, in Supplementary Table 3, the authors misspelt the surname of ‘Danny Meirte’; this file has now be...

The lizard genus Psilophthalmus was originally described from the sandy deposits at the northern end of Serra do Espinhaço, in Santo Inácio, state of Bahia, but since then it has been recorded in other Brazilian localities of the states of Bahia, Minas Gerais, and Sergipe. Here, we review the collected specimens based on molecular markers (mitochon...

A diversidade biológica não se distribui homogeneamente no planeta. Processos históricos de especiação, dispersão e extinção foram responsáveis pela riqueza pelo endemismo de espécies de cada região. Alguns fatores que contribuem para a eliminação de espécies têm sido acelerados pelo Homo sapiens. Entretanto, podem ser revertidos, especialmente nas...

Little is known about the threat levels and impacts of habitat loss over the Cerrado Squa-mate fauna. The region is under severe habitat loss due to mechanized agriculture, accelerated by changes in the Brazilian National Forest Code. The Squamate fauna of the Cerrado is rich in endemics and is intrinsically associated with its surrounding microhab...

The present study is a synthesis on snake diversity and distribution in the Caatinga region of northeastern Brazil, providing an updated species list and data on natural history and geographic distribution. Our study is based on the careful revision of 7, 102 voucher specimens, housed in 17 herpetological collections, complemented by data on taxono...

We present data on habitat use, activity, sexual dimorphism, reproduction, and diet of Bothrops itapetiningae, a species endemic to the Brazilian Cerrado. Habitat use was studied through active search techniques in several areas from July 1997 to July 2000. Diet, reproduction, activity, and sexual dimorphism were studied through the analysis of spe...

Our aims were to test the predictions of the vicariance model, searching for natural, non-random biogeographical units using data on snake distributions, and to assess the conservation of biogeographical patterns and underlying processes in the poorly studied Caatinga region. Caatinga region, north-eastern Brazil. We revised and georeferenced 7352...

AimOur aims were to investigate the spatial genetic structure of Micrablepharus atticolus and to assess the relative importance of differentiation in plateaus versus depressions, in areas of historical stability versus instability, and in central versus peripheral regions. LocationThe Brazilian Cerrado. Methods We compared the elevational range of...

Based on phylogenetic and molecular dating analyses of several species of Cnemidophorus and Ameiva, representing major groups of species of these two genera, we uncover a previ-ously unrecognized Ameiva lineage, which includes described Cnemidophorus parecis from south-western Amazonia. We discuss the diagnosis of Ameiva and Cnemidophorus and the i...

Effective and targeted conservation action requires detailed information about species, their distribution, systematics and ecology as well as the distribution of threat processes which affect them. Knowledge of reptilian diversity remains surprisingly disparate, and innovative means of gaining rapid insight into the status of reptiles are needed i...

The presence of the gymnophthalmid lizard Cercosaura parkeri (Ruibal, 1952) in western Brazil is confirmed, based on vouchered records for localities in the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul. Morphological variation in a series of 20 males and 17 females is also presented.

Here we provide a detailed description and diagnosis of Apostolepis albicollaris Lema, 2002, a species known from Central Brazil. The species is easily diagnosable from all its congeners by the following combination of characters: a distinctive white nuchal collar (bordered by a narrow black collar), a very broad black lateral streak (from ventral...

Brazil has a fundamental role in amphibian conservation, harboring the highest amphibian species richness in the world and a large number of endemics. Here, we present an overview of the Brazilian Amphibian Conser-vation Action Plan (BACAP), which is still being developed by Brazilian herpetologists. Basic research ¢ particularly species inventorie...