Daniel Rafael Miranda-Esquivel

• Dr. Ciencias Naturales
• Professor (Associate) at Industrial University of Santander

Phylogenetic Diversity (PD) is a crucial metric in evolutionary and conservation studies; however, its dependence on branch-length information can be a source of uncertainty. Branch Length Evaluation for Phylogenetic Diversity analysis (BLEPD) is a free and open-source R program used to quantify the uncertainty in PD calculations caused by varying...

BACKGROUND The works of Lutz & Neiva, published 115 years ago in the Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, are pioneering for the study of Neotropical Tabanidae. These studies emphasised the importance of biological collections and the description of species from the exploration of South American areas. Dasybasis Macquart, 1847 has traditionally been...

The phylogeny of the genus Pelecorhynchus Macquart (Diptera: Pelecorhynchidae) was analyzed using three genes, cytochrome oxidase I, 28S ribosomal DNA, and CAD5, with 112 morphological characteristics. A total of 59 specimens (13 outgroups and 46 ingroups) were included in the analysis. The monophyly of Pelecorhynchidae was recovered under all anal...

Background: The Northern Andean Block (NAB) harbors high biodiversity; therefore, it is one of the most important areas in the Neotropics. Nevertheless, the settlement of several human populations has triggered the rapid transformation of ecosystems, leading to the extinction or endangerment of many species. Methods: Because phylogenetic diversity...

The Amazon has high biodiversity, which has been attributed to different geological events such as the formation of rivers. The Old and Young Amazon hypotheses have been proposed regarding the date of the formation of the Amazon basin. Different studies of historical biogeography support the Young Amazon model, however, most studies use secondary c...

The diversity of dung beetles (Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) has traditionally been measured with ecological indices, mainly those based on species abundances, however, these do not cover all the attributes of the sites and the conclusions derived may be very shallow. As an alternative to these diversity measurements, morphometric disparity quantifie...

Neotropical páramos as biogeographic units. Páramo has been defined from various points of view, which take into account different factors that are easy to recognize or measure, nevertheless at the biogeographic level it has been evaluated with criticized methods used to identify historical units. The analysis of endemicity, despite its importance...

Geometric morphometry (GM) is a tool that allows us to use the shape of different morphological features as quantitative characters, which allows new approaches to taxonomic and evolutionary studies. Our objective was to compare the phylogenies of different groups using GM of anatomical structures against molecular evidence. We use five freely acce...

El propósito de este trabajo fue evaluar la sensibilidad de los índices Distintividad Taxonómica Promedia (AvTD) y Diversidad FIlogenética (PD) a la presencia de ramas largas.

El Páramo es un área localizada a partir del lí­mite superior del bosque andino. Sin embargo, en su definición se ignoran los factores históricos que gestaron la distribución de los taxa que lo habitan.Por lo cual, nuestro objetivo fue determinar si los páramos neotropicales son una o varias unidades biogeográficas y cuantificar la contribución de...

El Caribe es una región compleja compleja en términos de biológicos y geológicos; pese a que ha sido ampliamente estudiada, su regionalización y afinidades biogeográficas se basan en hipótesis poco evaluadas. Por esta razón, nuestros objetivos son en primer lugar, determinar si las Antillas es una o varias áreas de endemismo y evaluar la relación e...

Application of phylogenetic indices in the definition of conservation priorities in the northwest Andes paramos. Páramos are High Andean ecosystems that harbor a diverse biota and have high endemicity, because of their extreme environmental conditions. We used different phylogenetic indices to define conservation priorities in the paramos of the de...

Phylogenetic analyzes are based on data on taxa and whatever their nature, they must be informative enough to create a well supported phylogeny. The objective of this work is to evaluate the sensitivity of the topology to the removal of landmarks in the phylogeny of six species of the genus Diachlorus (Diptera: Tabanidae), based on morphometric dat...

In this poster we made a reconstruction of 7 species of Diachlorus presents in Colombia. Diachlorus (Tabanidae:Diptera) is a neotropical genus and it is characterized for its pearly pollinity in the pleura, also they present an anterior apical band in the wings. We used Geometrical Morphometric of this wings band for phylogenetic reconstruction and...

The Northern Andean Block harbors high biodiversity, being one of the most important areas in the Neotropics, but the settlement of several human populations has triggered rapid transformations of the ecosystems, leading to the extinction or endangerment of many species. Phylogenetic diversity indices quantify the distinctness between species and,...

The Northern Andean Block harbors high biodiversity, being one of the most important areas in the Neotropics, but the settlement of several human populations has triggered rapid transformations of the ecosystems, leading to the extinction or endangerment of many species. Phylogenetic diversity indices quantify the distinctness between species and,...

We used 637 species from six taxonomic classes to identify the pattern(s) of diversification, occurring in the North Andean Block estimating phylogenetic relationships, divergence times, dispersal-vicariance events, and ancestral distributions. We assessed four hypotheses that explain the diversification in the NAB. For each hypothesis, we specifie...

We used 637 species from six taxonomic classes to identify the pattern(s) of diversification, occurring in the North Andean Block estimating phylogenetic relationships, divergence times, dispersal-vicariance events, and ancestral distributions. We assessed four hypotheses that explain the diversification in the NAB. For each hypothesis, we specifie...

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...

Figure S1: Database schema. Diversity data in yellow, GIS data in green and Catalogue of Life data in blue. The diversity tables datasource, study, site, measuredtaxon and diversitymeasurement follow the structure described in ‘Methods’ in the main text and in Hudson et al. (2014): a datasource is associated with one or more study records, each of...

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...

AIM: Understanding the impact of land use change within assemblages is fundamental to mitigation policies at local and regional scale. Here, we aim to quantify how site-level terrestrial assemblages are responding to land use change in Colombia a mega-diverse country and to project future biodiversity under different scenarios of land use change as...

To reconstruct the biogeographic history should be taken into account the processes involved in the current distribution of the biota, for example vicariance, dispersal, sympatry and extinction. Different methods have been created to answer this. From methods to detect only vicariant events to ancestral area analysis under different models where al...

To reconstruct the biogeographic history should be taken into account the processes involved in the current distribution of the biota, for example vicariance, dispersal, sympatry and extinction. Different methods have been created to answer this. From methods to detect only vicariant events to ancestral area analysis under different models where al...

Aim Understanding the impact of land use change within assemblages is fundamental to mitigation policies at local and regional scale. Here, we aim to quantify how site‐level terrestrial assemblages are responding to land use change in Colombia a mega‐diverse country and to project future biodiversity under different scenarios of land use change ass...

This catalogue presents 70 species distributed in two genera for Colombia: Gigantodax with 5 groups, and Simulium with 6 subgenera and 17 groups. Three species are recorded for the first time: Gigantodax vulcanius, G. gracilis, and Simulium pautense, and the distributional range is expanded to S.ochraceum, S. paynei, S. metallicum, and S. callidum.

This catalogue presents 256 species distributed in 32 genera, six tribes and three subfamilies recorded to Colombia. For each species we present the available geographical information and most important references.

Human activities have accelerated the level of global biodiversity loss. As we cannot preserve all species and areas, we must prioritize what to protect. Therefore, one of the most urgent goals and crucial tasks in conservation biology is to prioritize areas. We could start by calculating ecological measures as richness or endemicity, but they do n...

We evaluated the directional asymmetry between right and left wings, and quantified the intraspecific and interspecific variation of the wing shape of 601 specimens of the genus Diachlorus to determine to what extent the geometrical variation discriminates six species distributed in six protected areas of Colombia. Geometric analyses were performed...

Introduction: Between 1998 and 2008 all dengue virus serotypes circulated in the Departamento de Santander, an endemic region in northeastern Colombia. No information is available as to the role of serotype 1 (DENV-1) with respect to epidemiology of dengue. Objective: To analyze the relationship between changes in DENV-1 predominance with respec...

AbstractA new consensus method for summarizing competing phylogenetic hypotheses, weighted compromise, is described. The method corrects for a bias inherent in majority‐rule consensus/compromise trees when the source trees exhibit non‐independence due to ambiguity in terminal clades. Suggestions are given for its employment in parsimony analyses an...

We discuss some topics which we believe are controversial on Escalante's work (2011). Both, the definition of PAE and the classification of the types of PAE proposed by the author do not accurately reflect the proposal by the original authors. The defense that the author makes is not justified. The argument used to dismiss these criticisms are inco...

Panbiogeography represents an evolutionary approach to biogeography, using rational cost-efficient methods to reduce initial complexity to locality data, and depict general distribution patterns. However, few quantitative, and automated panbiogeographic methods exist. In this study, we propose a new algorithm, within a quantitative, geometrical fra...

Amazonia is a highly threatened rainforest that encompasses a major proportion of Earth's biological diversity. Our main goal was to establish conservation priorities for Amazonia's areas of endemism on the basis of measures of evolutionary distinctiveness. We considered two previously identified sets of areas of endemism. The first set consisted o...

Dengue virus type 3 (DENV-3) re-appeared in Colombia in 2001 after 23 years of apparent absence, in the state of Santander in the North-eastern region near to Venezuelan border. In 2002, the virus was isolated in the state of Valle del Cauca in the South-east region near to Ecuadorian/Peruvian border, and in the state of Antioquia in the North-east...

The introduction of DENV-3 genotype III in Latin American countries has been associated with dengue outbreaks, and the role of the virus with respect to the occurrence of dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF) has been different depending on the country. We have conducted research on the relative abundance of DENV-3 in relation to the incidence of DHF in...

The problem of character weighting in cladistic analysis is revisited. The finding that, in large molecular data sets, removal of third positions (with more homoplasy) decreases the number of well supported groups has been interpreted by some authors as indicating that weighting methods are unjustified. Two arguments against that interpretation are...

Aim To demonstrate that parsimony analysis of endemicity (PAE) is not analogous to a cladistic biogeographical analysis. Location We used six data sets from previously published studies from around the world. Methods In order to test the efficiency of PAE in recovering historical relationships among areas, we performed an empirical comparison of no...

“Phylogenetic Analysis for Comparing Trees” (PACT) has been presented as a “new algorithm” for the study of biogeography and coevolution. However, an exploration of this algorithm revealed some important problems missed in the original description. First, PACT is not new, rather it is an extension of Tree Mapping under Maximum Codivergence (TM-MC)....

We described the histology and morphology of the vaginal–cloacal region in 18 species from 12 Squamata families. This comparative study revealed a wide variation in the cloacal morphology. Fifteen morphological characters were considered to be primary homology hypotheses and were optimized over the topology derived from the parsimony analysis of th...

Aim The study aimed to establish areas of endemism and distribution patterns for Neotropical species of the genus Piper in the Neotropical and Andean regions by means of parsimony analysis of endemicity (PAE) and track-compatibility analysis. Location The study area includes the Neotropical region and the Northern Andean region (Páramo-Punan subreg...

The genus Eleutherodactylus contains a large number of species and species groups that have had a notoriously difficult taxonomy. Morphometric analyses open new approaches and perspectives to evaluate morphological characters in the taxonomic context. Morphometric and statistical analyses were applied to differentiate taxonomically seven Eleutherod...

A study of the monophyly and phylogenetic relationships among the Gigantodax species-groups was conducted using all Gigantodax species and six outgroups. This analysis was conducted using 71 characters, 58 of them morphological characters derived from 66 species, and 13 of them cytological characters from 11 species. We conducted two analyses under...

Faith and Trueman [Syst. Biol. (2001) 331] recently proposed “Profile Parsimony” (PP) as a new form of phylogenetic analysis, but it is equivalent to the Implied Weights (IW) method when certain functions are used. The PP method cannot accommodate missing/inapplicable cells and/or multistate characters. Finally we demonstrate that, as defined, PP s...

Simulium (Hearlea) Vargas, Martínez Palacios, & Díaz Nájera 1957 is comprised of 20 known species that are largely confined to the area between México and Guatemala. Herein, all currently recognized species within this subgenus are described, illustrated, keyed (except males), and subjected to phylogenetic analysis. Geographic distributions for eac...

The weevil subtribe Listroderina belongs in the tribe Rhytirrhinini (subfamily Cyclominae), and has 25 genera and 300 species in the Americas. The distributional history of this subtribe was reconstructed applying dispersal-vicariance analysis (DIVA) using its genera as terminals. The results suggest that Listroderina originated within an area pres...

Phylogenetic diversity measures rank areas for biodiversity conservation priorities based on information encoded in phylogenies (cladograms). The goal of these ranks for conservation is to consider as many factors as possible that provide additional taxic information, such as taxa richness, taxa distributional patterns, area endemicity, and complem...

Phylogenetic diversity measures rank areas for biodiversity conservation priorities based on information encoded in phylogenies (cladograms). The goal of these ranks for conservation is to consider as many factors as possible that provide additional taxic information, such as taxa richness, taxa distributional patterns, area endemicity, and complem...

A cladistic analysis of Simulium (Trichodagmia) sensu Crosskey and Howard, using 34 morphological characters of larvae (6 characters), pupa (5) and adults (23), yields nine most parsimonious trees under equal weights (length 101 steps CI 0.49 RI 0.73). Successive weighting based on the maximal rescaled consistency index preferred one of the nine (3...

A cladistic analysis of Simulium (Trichodagmia) sensu Crosskey and Howard, using 34 morphological characters of larvae (6 characters), pupa (5) and adults (23), yields nine most parsimonious trees under equal weights (length 101 steps CI 0.49 RI 0.73). Successive weighting based on the maximal rescaled consistency index preferred one of the nine (3...

... Cuál es la situación actual de la sistemática en el contexto de la entomología? La realización del XXI Congreso Internacional de Entomología, llevado a cabo en Foz de Iguazú (Brasil) del 20 al 26 de agosto del 2000, nos brinda una oportunidad de analizar la respuesta. Sin embargo, esta es una pregunta compleja, a partir de la cual pueden deriva...

PAE is an historical biogeography tool for defining areas of endemism and establishing priority areas for conservation. PAE maximizes congruence among distributional patterns of taxa that inhabit a study region. We present herein the methodology of PAE and present a case study: the flora of Tierra del Fuego.

Esquivel: ¿Existe Sodiroa? Rev. Acad. Colomb. Cienc. 23 (87): 189-194, 1999 ISSN 0370-3908. Sodiroa s.! es un grupo de especies considerado actualmente dentro de Guzmania (Bromeliaceae). Está formado por los complejos Massangea y Sodiroa s.s., los cuales fueron considerados como géneros independientes en el pasado. Se somete a prueba la monofilia d...

A cladistic analysis of the species groups recognized in Gigantodax Enderlein, using morphological characters, shows that Gigantodax s. lat. is paraphyletic. From a phylogenetic standing Gigantodax must be split into two monophyletic entities: Gigantodax s. str. and the G. cortesi species group. The new genus Pedrowygomyia is proposed for the G. co...

Simulium (Inaequalium) inaequale, described as Eusimulium inaequalis (G Paterson & RC Shannon 1927), is a moderately anthropophilic species with a broad distribution. It is known from Brazil (from Amapa, Paraiba, and Mato Grosso to Rio Grande do Sul), Paraguay (Alto Parana and Cordillera), Bolivia (Nor Yungas, La Paz) and Argentina (Jujuy, Salta, T...

The departments of Cundinamarca and Tolima have 23 species from the genus Similium (8 subgenera) and 15 species from the genus Gigantodax (5 groups). 14 species are endemic. In order to make the species distribution analyses by similarity and paleoecology the authors use 70 collecton localities grouped in 28 regions. Cladograms of the Simulium subg...

La dificultad para definir las especies de Ectemnaspis o Psilopelmia surge de las pro­puestas de dos posiciones contrapuestas, la de Coscarón (1990) y la de Crosskey (1987). En primera instancia se planteó determinar la monofilia de los grupos y establecer el gru­po hermano de Ectemnaspis-Psilopelmia, para lo cual se realizó una serie de pruebas de...

RESUMEN En el sistema cordillerano de Colombia, la región de vida del Páramo es un área de concentración de numerosas especies con área de distribución restringida o endémica. Existen varias aproximaciones que ilustran esa aseveración, pero hasta ahora no se había realizado una verificación de tal hipótesis utilizando métodos de análisis biogeográf...