Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40625336›Full record

ArticleEcology and evolution2025

Regional Climate Drives Spatial Variation in Species Richness in the Most Diverse Family of Neotropical Snakes (Colubroidea: Dipsadidae).

Juan P Ramírez, Julián A Velasco, Tod W Reeder

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Ecology and evolution, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Juan P RamírezDepartment of Biology San Diego State University San Diego California USA.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0484-8047
Julián A VelascoInstituto de Ciencias de la Atmósfera y Cambio Climático Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Ciudad de México México.
Tod W ReederDepartment of Biology San Diego State University San Diego California USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Species richness gradients are frequently associated with spatial variation of environmental conditions. However, understanding how the regional environment influences species assemblages is an ongoing topic of discussion, with three non-exclusive explanations being proposed. Under these hypotheses, climate can determine the richness of regions in two main ways: (1) directly, by determining their carrying capacity, or (2) indirectly, through its effects on either (a) lineage diversification (i.e., the rates of speciation and/or extinction), or (b) the duration over which regions have been accumulating species. Recently, some studies have started to simultaneously evaluate and compare the role of these mechanisms in determining richness gradients. For this work, we set out to identify the factors that determine the spatial variation in richness of the hyperdiverse snake family Dipsadidae. To achieve this goal, we first calculated the number of species of the group in 100 × 100 km cells throughout its distribution. Then, using piecewise structural equations, we evaluated and compared the ability to predict the richness of these cells by several environmental (current climatic seasonality and past climatic stability) and evolutionary variables (speciation rates and time for speciation). We found that the richness gradient of Dipsadidae is directly explained by current seasonality and productivity, with a limited role of macroevolutionary processes. Therefore, our results support the idea that current climate has a primary role in determining the geographic patterns of the richness of the group, with the influence of diversification and time on regional diversity potentially obscured by the elevated levels of dispersal within the group. Such a possibility needs to be evaluated in future studies that explicitly assess the impact of dispersal on regional richness, both for the Dipsadidae and other groups where similar results have been reported.

Indexed as

climatedispersaldiversificationevolutionary timemacroecologyNeotropicsspecies diversity

Identifiers

PMID40625336
PMCPMC12230370

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