Freshwater fish diversity in the western Amazon basin shaped by Andean uplift since the Late Cretaceous.

ABSTRACT: South America is home to the highest freshwater fish biodiversity on Earth, and the hotspot of species richness is located in the western Amazon basin. The location of this hotspot is enigmatic, as it is inconsistent with the pattern observed in river systems across the world of increasing species richness towards a river's mouth. Here we investigate the role of river capture events caused by Andean mountain building and repeated episodes of flooding in western Amazonia in shaping the modern-day richness pattern of freshwater fishes in South America, and in Amazonia in particular. To this end, we combine a reconstruction of river networks since 80 Ma with a mechanistic model simulating dispersal, allopatric speciation and extinction over the dynamic landscape of rivers and lakes. We show t

SUBMITTER: Boschman LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10697839 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature