Studying species interactions in nature often requires elaborated logistics and intense fieldwork. The distribution pattern of Chacoan snakes also reflects their evolutionary history, with a marked phylogenetic regionalization.ฤก. Phylogenetic regions in the Chaco showed a marked latitudinal pattern, like that observed in the geographic pattern of verticality. Fossoriality is driven mainly by soil conditions, especially soils with fewer sand particles and less stratified habitat. Verticality and long-tailed species richness increased in areas with high stratified habitats and stable temperature. We found a latitudinal pattern, with a marked verticality in the snake assemblies in the Chaco. Lastly, we used evolutionary data to build the first map of the phylogenetic regions of Chacoan snakes. We used a range of environmental variables to assess which drivers are influencing these biogeographic patterns. We compiled morphological, ecological, and distribution data of 140 species of Chacoan snakes and constructed null models to map their geographic pattern. In this study, we aimed to identify functional and evolutionary drivers that explain the geographic patterns of vertical stratification. The continuous accumulation of information on the distribution patterns of species is essential to understand the history and evolution of the biota. These patterns of distributions can be explained by vegetation, and climatic factors, and are determined by historical and current factors. Macroecological studies describe large-scale diversity patterns through analyses of species distribution patterns and allows us to elucidate how species differing in ecology, physical requirements, and life histories are distributed in a multidimensional space. These results suggest that morphological evolution is more constrained in arboreal snakes than in non-arboreal snakes. Ornstein-Uhlenbeck models showed that arboreal snakes tend to be longer than non-arboreal snakes, that rates of body size evolution are generally lower in arboreal snakes, and that arboreal body sizes are pulled more strongly towards their optimum than in non-arboreal snakes. We found that generally, arboreal snakes are most frequently nocturnal, oviparous, reptile-eating, brown/banded/patterned snakes inhabiting the Neotropics (assessing each trait individually, not jointly) and that arboreality has no effect on rates of diversification. We expected that transitions to an arboreal lifestyle might open new ecological opportunities, leading to increased diversification rates, and that different selective pressures for arboreal snakes might lead to changes in body size evolution. Finally, we tested for an association between body size and arboreality by fitting multi-peak Ornstein-Uhlenbeck models. We then tested for associations between diversification rates and arboreal habits and reconstructed ancestral states using the hidden state speciation and extinction (HiSSE) approach. We surveyed the literature to identify all known arboreal snakes and summarize their general characteristics. Although studies have examined the habits and characteristics of arboreal snakes at the level of individual species or small clades, a broad survey has never been performed across all snakes. Major habitat shifts are often facilitated by particular traits that confer advantages in the new environment. Arboreal lifestyles represent common and major habitat shifts among snakes.
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