Mariana A. Grossi

Where is historical biogeography going? The evolution of the discipline in the first decade of the 21st century:

It has been argued that historical biogeography, the study of how processes that occur over long periods of time influence the distribution of life forms, is in the midst of a scientific revolution. The aim of this paper is to analyze the evolution of historical biogeography during the first decade of the 21st century and to identify major trends for the near future. We constructed a database containing all articles which dealt with historical biogeography published in the Journal of Biogeography during 1998–2010. The database included 610 contributions. Our results indicated that historical biogeography is going through a growth period. The papers analyzed were written by 2018 authors, with a mean of 3.3 authors per paper. Authors from 62 countries were involved, and most of them worked in Europe or North America. The Palearctic was the most analyzed region. Most contributions dealt with terrestrial habitats and were devoted to animal (especially Chordata) and plant taxa. Phylogeography was the most used approach (35%), followed by biota similarity and PAE (13%) and molecular biogeography (12%), with cladistic biogeography and event-based methods at 6% each. Some of the future challenges that historical biogeography faces are summarized: (1) to increase the study of taxa which are underrepresented according to the segment of biodiversity they represent; (2) to balance the amount of work devoted to different biogeographical regions; (3) to increase biogeographical knowledge of aquatic habitats; (4) to maintain the diversity of approaches, preventing the reduction of time, spatial, and taxonomic scales addressed by the discipline; and (5) to continue integrating historical biogeography along with other sources of information from other disciplines (e.g. ecology, paleontology, geology, isotope chemistry, remote sensing) into a richer context for explaining past, present, and future patterns of biodiversity on Earth.

Stomatanthes reticulatus (Asteraceae), a New Species from Brazil

Stomatanthes reticulatus M.A. Grossi & J.N. Nakaj., an endemic to Serra da Canastra (Minas Gerais, Brazil), is described and illustrated. It resembles in appearance S. subcapitatus but differs by the coriaceous leaves and 7-ribbed achenes.

A New Circumscription of the Genus Stomatanthes (Asteraceae, Eupatorieae)

Abstract A revision of the genus Stomatanthes (Asteraceae, Eupatorieae) is presented. A cladistic analysis of 43 qualitative and eight quantitative morphological characters resulted in one tree that suggests a narrower delimitation of the genus relative to previous circumscriptions. Stomatanthes thus comprises three species, one widespread in sub-Saharan Africa and the other two endemic to restricted areas in central Africa. A cluster analysis and a non-metric multidimensional scaling were also performed. Of the 25 quantitative traits originally measured for the analysis, eight (blade length and width, involucre length, corolla length, corolla limb width, corolla tube width, thecae length, anther apical appendage length) provided clustering information and indicated the same groupings as the cladistic analysis. This revision also includes full descriptions of species, photographs, illustrations, and distribution maps.

Neotypification of Stomatanthes helenae (Buscal. & Muschl.) Lisowski (Asteraceae): the curious history of an African specimen

Abstract Grossi, M. A. (2011). Neotypification of Stomatanthes helenae (Buscal. & Muschl.) Lisowski (Asteraceae): the curious history of an African specimen. Candollea 66: 361–366. In English, English and French abstracts. The holotype of the name of the Central African species Stomatanthes helenae (Buscal. & Muschl.) Lisowski (Asteraceae), initially described as Eupatorium helenae Buscal. & Muschl., was destroyed during the World War II. No other original material of this name was found, except for an illustration housed at BR. A specimen from BRLU herbarium is chosen here as neotype of Eupatorium helenae. Additionally, a re-description of the species, an illustration, a distribution map, as well as a key to the African species of Stomatanthes, are provided.

Genetic Variability in Apurimacia dolichocarpa (Fabaceae), a Narrow Endemic Species of Córdoba Hills, Argentina

Apurimacia dolichocarpa (Fabaceae) is a narrow endemic species, restricted to Córdoba Hills, Argentina. At present, only two populations are known. In order to analyse the level and distribution of its genetic variability, allele frequencies in 16 loci coding for enzymes were estimated from starch gel electrophoresis patterns. The levels of genetic diversity (P99% = 56.25, A = 1.81, He = 0.1125) are higher than the mean for endemic species reported in the literature. The low level of genetic differentiation between the two populations (&thgr; = 0.04) may be the result of a recent fragmentation of an ancestral panmictic population. Apurimacia dolichocarpa does not appear as threatened from the genetic viewpoint, given that its populations preserve a moderate level of allozymic polymorphism. Artificial establishment of intermediate populations would facilitate pollen dispersal, a strategy that could favour the maintenance of the polymorphism levels.

Acanthostyles (Asteraceae, Eupatorieae): a revision with a multivariate analysis

The Neotropical genus Acanthostyles R.M.King & H.Rob. (Asteraceae, Eupatorieae) occurs from northern Argentina up to northern Patagonia, southern Brazil, central and southern Bolivia, and Uruguay. Different taxonomic treatments have suggested that Acanthostyles might include two species (A. buniifolius (Hook. & Arn.) R.M.King & H.Rob. and A. saucechicoensis (Hieron.) R.M.King & H.Rob.), or even only a single, highly variable, species. Therefore, a detailed morphological study and a taxonomic revision of Acanthostyles were carried out. A principal component analysis of 73 specimens, representing the morphological variability and geographic distribution of Acanthostyles, was conducted to test the validity of these taxa. Results showed that the morphological variation of A. saucechicoensis is included within the infraspecific variation of A. buniifolius. No clearly separated groups were revealed by the principal component analysis. We, therefore, propose that A. saucechicoensis is treated as a synonym of A. buniifolius, and thus Acanthostyles becomes a single, highly variable species throughout its range.

The road to 2020 targets and the learnings from the emblematic South American plant genus Nassauvia (Asteraceae)

The elaboration of a comprehensive database about the distribution of the South American genus Nassauvia has allowed investigate its conservation biogeography. The combined use of historical (Dispersal Vicariance Analysis) and ecological (UPGMA) biogeographical approaches has led to detecting past, present and future critical areas in the evolution and persistence of the genus. According to the size of distribution areas, number of locations, environmental niche models, and predicted shifts of these spatial characteristics following the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecasts for the next decade, it has been possible to award the level of global and national risk for all species of the genus and assign their corresponding IUCN categories. Severe gaps in legal and in situ conservation policies have been detected within the region, making it urgent the adoption of measures aimed at preventing the extinction of the most endangered species. We identify a future dramatic loss of Nassauvia species in the Andes and conversely a species increase in Patagonia. Patagonia has emerged as the cradle of the genus and could be its refuge in the future according the predictions targeted by climate change.