Padrões na estruturação de comunidades de mamíferos terrestres na América do Sul

Abstract

In the analysis of the causes that lead to the convergence of patterns in the structure of terrestrial mammalian faunas in South America, there have always been a challenge to obtain an exact portrayal of observable evolutionary processes in larger scales. In this paper, we aimed at the analysis of the distributional patterns for South American terrestrial mastofauna, trying to correlate the different communities with distinct graphs through the use of a refined coenogram method. It takes into account ecological variables that influence the distribution and size of species (feeding, locomotion, and weight), and examines the possibilities of application of this methodology in the analysis of extinct South American terrestrial mammalian faunas. The results show some consistency in using such methodology for extant assemblages, and also a good possibility of its application for extinct ones. However, some considerations should be made on gaps in the knowledge over distributional patterns of current mammalian faunas, such as the evolutionary and ecological relationship between mammals and the South American continent.