
Waldir Miron Berbel-FilhoUniversity of West Florida | UWF · Department of Biology
Waldir Miron Berbel-Filho
PhD
About
44
Publications
11,651
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502
Citations
Introduction
I have a broad interest in all aspects of evolutionary biology, ranging from the molecular mechanisms underpinning phenotypic variation to the eco-evolutionary forces shaping the evolutionary history of populations/species.
Additional affiliations
March 2020 - August 2024
University of Oklahoma
Position
- PostDoc Position
March 2008 - December 2011
October 2015 - October 2019
Publications
Publications (44)
Parasite‐mediated selection is one of the main drivers of genetic variation in natural
populations. The persistence of long‐term self‐fertilization, however, challenges the
notion that low genetic variation and inbreeding compromise the host's ability to re‐
spond to pathogens. DNA methylation represents a potential mechanism for gener‐
ating addit...
Parental effects influence offspring phenotypes through pre- and post-natal routes but little is known about their molecular basis, and therefore their adaptive significance. Epigenetic modifications, which control gene expression without changes in the DNA sequence and are influenced by the environment, may contribute to parental effects. Taking a...
Different mating systems can strongly affect the extent of genetic diversity and population structure among species. Given the increased effects of genetic drift on reduced population size, theory predicts that species undergoing self-fertilisation should have greater population structure than outcrossed species; however, demographic dynamics may a...
Different mating systems are expected to affect the extent and direction of hybridization. Due to the different levels of sexual conflict, the weak inbreeder/strong outbreeder (WISO) hypothesis predicts that gametes from self-incompatible (SI) species should outcompete gametes from self-compatible (SC) ones. However, other factors such as timing of...
Mangrove killifishes of the genus Kryptolebias have been historically classified as rare because of their small size and cryptic nature. Major gaps in distribution knowledge across mangrove areas, particularly in South America, challenge the understanding of the taxonomic status, biogeographical patterns and genetic structuring of the lineages comp...
Listrura and Microcambeva are two genera of small, rare and elusive catfishes of the Trichomycteridae family, endemic to the Atlantic Forest coastal drainages in Brazil. Listrura comprises 13 species with slender bodies, absent pelvic fins, and a distinct caudal-fin and caudal-peduncle morphology, while Microcambeva includes eight species with tran...
Widespread species often experience significant environmental clines over the area they naturally occupy. We investigated a widespread livebearing fish, the Sailfin molly ( Poecilia latipinna ) combining genetic, life-history, and environmental data, asking how structured populations are. Sailfin mollies can be found in coastal freshwater and brack...
Non-genetic sources of phenotypic variation, such as the epigenome and the microbiome, could be important contributors to adaptive variation for species with low genetic diversity. However, little is known about the complex interaction between these factors and the genetic diversity of the host, particularly in wild populations. Here, we examine th...
The role of hybridization as a formative process in evolution has received much attention in the past few decades. A particularly fascinating outcome of hybrid speciation is the formation of asexual hybrid species. The Amazon molly ( Poecilia formosa ) is such a hybrid and originated from a P. mexicana mother and a P. latipinna father. Consequently...
The Mexican Rivulus, Millerichthys robustus , is an enigmatic species of seasonal killifish endemic of the Southeast Mexico that has changed paradigms on the evolution of annualism in killifishes. This species survives in ephemeral environments that experience a period of seasonal drought that causes the death of all adult fish. However, population...
We investigated structuring in a widespread livebearing fish, the Sailfin molly ( Poecilia latipinna ) combining genetic, life-history, and environmental data. Widespread species often experience significant environmental clines over the area the naturally occupy. This provides potential for genetic structuring, local adaptation and speciation. Sai...
Hybridization is a natural process whereby two diverging evolutionary lineages reproduce and create offspring of mixed ancestry. Differences in mating systems (e.g., self‐fertilization and outcrossing) are expected to affect the direction and extent of hybridization and introgression in hybrid zones. Among other factors, selfers and outcrossers are...
Asexual reproduction is ancestral in prokaryotes; the switch to sexuality in eukaryotes is one of the major transitions in the history of life. The study of the maintenance of sex in eukaryotes has raised considerable interest for decades and is still one of evolutionary biology's most prominent question. The observation that many asexual species a...
Hybridization is a natural process whereby two diverging evolutionary lineages reproduce and create offspring of mixed ancestry. Differences in mating systems (e.g., self-fertilization and outcrossing) are expected to affect the direction and extent of hybridization and introgression in hybrid zones. Among other factors, selfers and outcrossers are...
The killifish genus Kryptolebias currently contains seven recognized species found in freshwater and mangrove microhabitats in South and Central America, the Caribbean, and Florida. Kryptolebias species have several unique features. Beyond its amphibious nature, two of the Kryptolebias species ( K. marmoratus and K. hermaphroditus sensu Costa 2011)...
The role of hybridization as a formative process in evolution has received much attention in the past few decades. A particularly fascinating outcome of hybrid speciation is the formation of asexual hybrid species. This is the case in the Amazon molly (Poecilia formosa). It is of hybrid origin and had a P. mexicana female as mother and a P. latipin...
Non-genetic sources of phenotypic variation, such as the epigenome and the microbiome, could be important sources of adaptive variation for species with low genetic diversity, but little is known about the complex interaction between them and the genetic diversity of the host, particularly in wild populations. We examined the skin microbiome compos...
Asexual reproduction is ancestral in prokaryotes; the switch to sexuality in eukaryotes is one of the major transitions in the history of life. The study of the maintenance of sex in eukaryotes has raised considerable interest for decades and is still one of evolutionary biology's most prominent question. The observation that many asexual species a...
Hybridization is a natural process whereby two diverging evolutionary lineages reproduce and create offspring of mixed ancestry. Differences in mating systems (e.g., self-fertilization and outcrossing) are expected to affect the direction and extent of hybridization and introgression in hybrid zones. Among other factors, selfers and outcrossers are...
Hybridization is a natural process whereby two diverging evolutionary lineages reproduce and create offspring of mixed ancestry. Differences in mating systems (e.g., self-fertilization and outcrossing) are expected to affect the direction and extent of hybridization and introgression in hybrid zones. Among other factors, selfers and outcrossers are...
Hybridisation is a major source of evolutionary innovation. In plants, epigenetic mechanisms can help to stabilize hybrid genomes and contribute to reproductive isolation, but the relationship between genetic and epigenetic changes in animal hybrids is unclear. We analysed the relationship between genetic background and methylation patterns in natu...
Introgression is a widespread evolutionary process leading to phylogenetic inconsistencies among distinct parts of the genomes, particularly between mitochondrial and nuclear-based phylogenetic reconstructions (e.g., mito-nuclear discordances). Here, we used mtDNA and genome-wide nuclear sites to provide the first phylogenomic-based hypothesis on t...
Ecological niche modeling (ENM) provides information on the potential environmental barriers to a species that can be tested in phylogeographic studies. A previous ENM analysis of the benthic coastal stingray Hypanus marianae revealed a low suitability area for its occurrence at the São Francisco River (SFR) mouth, the fourth largest river flowing...
Aim
The disjunct distributions of freshwater organisms along coastal drainages are usually explained by palaeodrainages formed during sea‐level retreats that connected currently isolated basins, or by river capture from tectonic adjustments between adjoining watersheds. We evaluate the relative importance of these events on the genetic variation of...
Different mating systems can strongly affect the extent of genetic diversity and population structure among species. Given the increased effects of genetic drift on reduced population size, theory predicts that species undergoing self-fertilization should have greater population structure than outcrossed species, however demographic dynamics may af...
Hybridisation is a major source of evolutionary innovation. However, several prezygotic and postzygotic factors influence its likelihood and evolutionary outcomes. Differences in mating systems can have a major effect on the extent and direction of hybridisation and introgression. In plants, epigenetic mechanisms help to stabilize hybrid genomes an...
Seirinae is one of the most diverse subfamilies of Collembola. To date no detailed phylogeny of Seirinae has been proposed, which leads to difficulties in the understanding of evolutionary patterns regarding this taxon. The main aim of this study is to clarify the phylogenetic relationships within the Neotropical Seirinae, by generating and analysi...
The field of ecological epigenetics aims to understand the implications of epigenetic
modifications in adaptation, inheritance and ultimately, evolution. Many questions
remain open within ecological epigenetics, in particular, how epigenetic variation is
influenced by genetic background, the extent of environmentally-induced epigenetic
variants, as...
Epigenetic mechanisms generate plastic phenotypes that can become locally adapted across environments. Disentangling genomic from epigenomic variation is challenging in sexual species due to genetic variation among individuals, but it is easier in self-fertilizing species. We analysed DNA methylation patterns of two highly inbred strains of a natur...
Parasite-mediated selection is one of the main drivers of genetic variation in natural populations. The persistence of asexual reproduction and self-fertilization, however, challenges the notion that low genetic variation and inbreeding compromise the host's ability to respond to pathogens. DNA methylation represents a potential mechanism for gener...
Poeciliavivipara , a small euryhaline guppy is reported at the Maceió River micro-basin in the Fernando de Noronha oceanic archipelago, northeast Brazil. However, the origin (human-mediated or natural dispersal) of this insular population is still controversial. The present study investigates how this population is phylogenetically related to the s...
Paleo-drainage connections and headwater stream-captures are two main historical processes shaping the distribution of strictly freshwater fishes. Recently, bathymetric-based methods of paleo-drainage reconstruction have opened new possibilities to investigate how these processes have shaped the genetic structure of freshwater organisms. In this co...
We use extensive geographical sampling and surveys of nuclear microsatellite and mitochondrial DNA loci to investigate the phylogeographic structure of the only recognized self-fertilizing vertebrates, the mangrove killifishes, currently thought to comprise two cryptic species, Kryptolebias marmoratus and Kryptolebias hermaphroditus. All genetic ma...
The genus Octopus has been treated as a “catch all” taxon because many species have morphological similarities. To investigate the taxonomic status of the Octopus species in the Tropical Northwestern Atlantic (TNA) and the Tropical Southwestern Atlantic (TSA), we sampled Octopus insularis Leite and Haimovici, 2008 in three areas of the northeastern...
During an ichthyological survey in September 2015 at the Ceará-Mirim River estuary, Rio Grande do Norte State, northeastern Brazil, we collected a male of Kryptolebias hermaphroditus, a cynolebiid species that had been previously described as containing exclusively self-fertilizing hermaphrodites. This is the first record of a male in this species,...
Trichogenes longipinnis Britski & Ortega is a narrowly distributed endemic and phenotypically variable catfish from the coastal basins of the Serra do Mar range in southeast Brazil. We examined patterns of mtDNA variation of this species in coastal basins of the Serra do Mar to determine the influences of past climatic and geomorphological processe...
Intraspecific morphological variation can be generated by a set of historical and ecological processes, and can be induced by anthropogenic actions. One such activity that has large-scale environmental impacts in freshwater environments is interbasin water transfer. Brazil's Mid-Northeastern Caatinga freshwater ecoregion is going through an interba...
The family Cichlidae is considered a model for studies of adaptive radiation among vertebrates. However ,
cytogenetic data focusing to understanding the karyotype evolution of this family are still incipient, particularly for species of semi-arid region of northeastern of Brazil. This study presents the first karyotypic information of neotropical...
The present study reports the first record of the small characid fish Hyphessobrycon itaparicensisLima and Costa, 2001 in two coastal drainages of Sergipe State, Brazil. This species was collected in three sampling sites from Piauí and Sergipe river basins, both in the hydrographic ecoregion of Northeastern Mata Atlantica. Aspects of habitat, diet...
The present study analyzes the effects of freezing and alcohol preservation in geometric morphometric data, using 15 individuals of the peacock fish Cichla kelberi (12.9–26.4 cm SL) divided into freezing and alcohol groups, conserved in each preservation method for 90 days. Discriminant analysis revealed significant difference between before and af...
Geometric morphometric analysis has increased in the recent years, turning into a powerful tool to explore shape and size variation. Several biological studies use specimens that have been through some kind of preservation, mainly formalin preservation, commonly used in biological collections. This study analyzed the effect of preservation in shape...