Using community phylogenetics to assess phylogenetic structure in the fitzcarrald region of Western Amazonia

Here we explore the use of community phylogenetics as a tool to document patterns of biodiversity in the Fitzcarrald region, a remote area in Southwestern Amazonia. For these analyses, we subdivide the region into basin-wide assemblages encompassing the headwaters of four Amazonian tributaries (Urubamba, Yuruá, Purús and Las Piedras basins), and habitat types: river channels, terra firme (non-floodplain) streams, and floodplain lakes. We present a robust, well-documented collection of fishes from the region including 272 species collected from 132 field sites over 63 field days and four years, comprising the most extensive collection of fishes from this region to date. We conduct a preliminary community phylogenetic analysis based on this collection and recover results largely statistically indistinguishable from the random expectation, with only a few instances of phylogenetic structure. Based on these results, and of those published in other recent biogeographic studies, we conclude that the Fitzcarrald fish species pool accumulated over a period of several million years, plausibly as a result of dispersal from the larger species pool of Greater Amazonia.