Integrating Genomics and Biogeography to Unravel the Origin of a Mountain Biota: The Case of a Reptile Endemicity Hotspot in Arabia

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11310%2F25%3A10511726" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11310/25:10511726 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=1aO86Bfwzz" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=1aO86Bfwzz</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syae032" target="_blank" >10.1093/sysbio/syae032</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Integrating Genomics and Biogeography to Unravel the Origin of a Mountain Biota: The Case of a Reptile Endemicity Hotspot in Arabia

Original language description

Advances in genomics have greatly enhanced our understanding of mountain biodiversity, providing new insights into the complex and dynamic mechanisms that drive the formation of mountain biotas. These span from broad biogeographic patterns to population dynamics and adaptations to these environments. However, significant challenges remain in integrating large-scale and fine-scale findings to develop a comprehensive understanding of mountain biodiversity. One significant challenge is the lack of genomic data, especially in historically understudied arid regions where reptiles are a particularly diverse vertebrate group. In the present study, we assembled a de novo genome-wide SNP dataset for the complete endemic reptile fauna of a mountain range (19 described species with more than 600 specimens sequenced), and integrated state-of-the-art biogeographic analyses at the population, species, and community level. Thus, we provide a holistic integration of how a whole endemic reptile community has originated, diversified and dispersed through a mountain system. Our results show that reptiles independently colonized the Hajar Mountains of southeastern Arabia 11 times. After colonization, species delimitation methods suggest high levels of within-mountain diversification, supporting up to 49 deep lineages. This diversity is strongly structured following local topography, with the highest peaks acting as a broad barrier to gene flow among the entire community. Interestingly, orogenic events do not seem key drivers of the biogeographic history of reptiles in this system. Instead, past climatic events seem to have had a major role in this community assemblage. We observe an increase of vicariant events from Late Pliocene onwards, coinciding with an unstable climatic period of rapid shifts between hyper-arid and semiarid conditions that led to the ongoing desertification of Arabia. We conclude that paleoclimate, and particularly extreme aridification, acted as a main driver of diversification in arid mountain systems which is tangled with the generation of highly adapted endemicity. Overall, our study does not only provide a valuable contribution to understanding the evolution of mountain biodiversity, but also offers a flexible and scalable approach that can be reproduced into any taxonomic group and at any discrete environment.

Czech name

—

Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

10613 - Zoology

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA22-12757S" target="_blank" >GA22-12757S: Genomic highways in extreme environments: historical and present patterns of population connectivity of desert reptiles</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Systematic Biology

ISSN

1063-5157

e-ISSN

1076-836X

Volume of the periodical

74

Issue of the periodical within the volume

2

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

20

Pages from-to

230-249

UT code for WoS article

001319803100001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-105001968445