Comparative ecological niche modeling and evolutionary ecology of Neotropical mycophagous Drosophilidae (Diptera) species

Abstract

This study provides new records on the distribution of 22 species of mycophagous Drosophilidae and reports the southernmost and/or northernmost register points for most of them. Climatic modeling analysis revealed that the sampled species are heterogeneous as concerns the patterns of potential geographical ranges. A regular pattern emerging from the evaluated models is that the minimum temperature of the coldest month is one of the most determinant variables of habitat suitability for most species, although the particular response patterns may be further subdivided. In particular, some putative geographically restricted species appear to be highly susceptible to minor increases in the minimal temperature ranges, indicating that they are potential targets for the temperature rises expected to affect the Neotropics over the next decades and centuries. Moreover, as our analyses detected niche conservatism signals among the studied species, potential range shifts in face of future climatic oscillations may also be questioned.