Phylogeography and Pleistocene demographic history of the endangered marsh deer (Blastocerus dichotomus) from the Rio de la Plata Basin

The marsh deer is the largest neotropical cervid with morphological and ecological adaptations to wetlands and riparian habitats. Historically, this now endangered species occupied habitats along the major river basins in South America, ranging from southern Amazonia into northern Argentina to the Parana river delta. This particularly close association with wetlands makes marsh deer an excellent species for studying the effects of Pleistocene climatic changes on their demographic and phylogeographic patterns. We examined mitochondrial DNA variation in 127 marsh deer from 4 areas distributed throughout the Rio de]a Plata basin. We found 17 haplotypes in marsh deer from Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina that differed by 1-8 substitutions in a 601 bp fragment of mitochondrial control region sequence, and 486 bp of cytochrome b revealed only 3 variable sites that defined 4 haplotypes. Phylogeny and distribution of control region haplotypes suggest that populations close to the Pantanal area in central Brazil underwent a rapid population expansion and that this occurred approximately 28,000-25,000 years BP. Paleoclimatic data from this period suggests that there was a dramatic increase for precipitation in the medium latitudes in South America and these conditions may have fostered marsh deer's population growth.

Khoisan hunter-gatherers have been the largest population throughout most of modern-human demographic history

The Khoisan people from Southern Africa maintained ancient lifestyles as hunter-gatherers or pastoralists up to modern times, though little else is known about their early history. Here we infer early demographic histories of modern humans using whole-genome sequences of five Khoisan individuals and one Bantu speaker. Comparison with a 420 K SNP data set from worldwide individuals demonstrates that two of the Khoisan genomes from the Ju/'hoansi population contain exclusive Khoisan ancestry. Coalescent analysis shows that the Khoisan and their ancestors have been the largest populations since their split with the non-Khoisan population similar to 100-150 kyr ago. In contrast, the ancestors of the non-Khoisan groups, including Bantu-speakers and non-Africans, experienced population declines after the split and lost more than half of their genetic diversity. Paleoclimate records indicate that the precipitation in southern Africa increased similar to 80-100 kyr ago while west-central Africa became drier. We hypothesize that these climate differences might be related to the divergent-ancient histories among human populations.

Cryptic lineages and Pleistocene population expansion in a Brazilian Cerrado frog

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Panorama of immigration for Sao Paulo following the Second World War

This article proposes to analyze the results of a research conducted in the São Paulo Immigrants Memorial, whose purpose was to work with an agreement between the state of São Paulo and the Union, according to which the state committed itself to receive, from May 1947 to 1952, immigrants of different European nationalities. Such immigrants had a specific characteristic that conferred them a peculiar status in the eyes of the United Nations, given the fact that they originated from Germany and Austria and where either displaced persons or refugees who could not or did not want to return to their homelands, for several reasons. Italians represented only 0,12% of this group. Italian immigration to Brazil became significant only after 1950, due to the Brazil-Italy immigration agreements.

Barriers, rather than refugia, underlie the origin of diversity in toads endemic to the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Diversificação de anuros no Chaco Sul-Americano

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Estrutura genômica de uma população de suínos base Landrace

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Evolutionary history of Scinax treefrogs on land-bridge islands in south-eastern Brazil

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Life-history traits of the red brocade hermit crab Dardanus insignis on the subtropical Brazilian coast

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)