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Tantilla boipiranga is a rare vulnerable snake found in the Atlantic Forest, distributed in the phytophysiognomy of rocky grasslands (campos rupestres), in southeastern Brazil. Here, we update the known geographic range of the species to eight new localities in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, extending its distribution approximately 400 km northwards to the municipality of Almenara, from the previous northernmost record, and 703 km from the type locality.

Made available in DSpace on 2021-06-25T10:32:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2021-06-01 Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund The campo rupestre ecosystem is considered an old, climatically buffered, infertile landscape. As a consequence, long-term isolation is thought to have played an important role in the diversification of its biota. Here, we tested for hybridization between two endemic leaf frogs from the campo rupestre. We used sequence markers and coalescent models to verify haplotype sharing between the species, to test the existence and direction of gene flow, and to reconstruct the spatiotemporal dynamics of gene flow. Additionally, ecological niche modelling (ENM) was used to assess for potential co-occurrence by overlapping the climatic niche of these species since the middle Pleistocene. We found haplotype sharing and/or lack of differentiation in four nuclear fragments, one of them associated with introgression. The coalescent models support introgressive hybridization unidirectionally from Pithecopus megacephalus to P. ayeaye, occurring ∼300 kya. ENM corroborates this scenario, revealing areas of potential environmental niche overlap for the species at about 787 kya. These results contradict the expectation of reduced hybridization, while ENM suggests climatic fluctuation rather than stability for the two species. The reduced hybridization hypothesis needs to be further investigated because our results suggest that it may have unrealistic premises at least for animals. Departamento de Ciências Naturais Universidade Federal de São João del-Rei Programa de Pós-Graduação em Zoologia Departamento de Zoologia Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais Laboratório de Biodiversidade e Evolução Molecular Departamento de Genética Ecologia e Evolução Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais Laboratorio de Ecologia e Conservação Departamento de Botânica e Ecologia Instituto de Biociências Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso Programa de Pós-Graduação em Zoologia Instituto de Biociências Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) Programa de Pós-Graduação em Genética e Biologia Molecular Departamento de Genética Evolução Microbiologia e Imunologia Universidade Estadual de Campinas Laboratório de Fauna e Unidades de Conservação Departamento de Engenharia Florestal Universidade de Brasília, Distrito Federal Programa de Pós-Graduação em Zoologia Instituto de Biociências Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP)