Ancient drainages divide cryptic species in Australia's arid zone: Morphological and multi-gene evidence for four new species of Beaked Geckos (Rhynchoedura)

Mitzy Pepper*, Paul Doughty, Mark N. Hutchinson, J. Scott Keogh

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    50 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Deserts and other arid zones remain among the least studied biomes on Earth. Emerging genetic patterns of arid-distributed biota suggest a strong link between diversification history and both the onset of aridification and more recent cycles of severe aridification. A previous study based on 1kb of mtDNA of the monotypic gecko genus Rhynchoedura identified five allopatric clades across the vast Australian arid zone. We supplemented this data with 2.2kb from three nuclear loci and additional mtDNA sequences. Phylogenetic relationships estimated from the mtDNA data with ML and Bayesian methods were largely concordant with relationships estimated with the nDNA data only, and mtDNA and nDNA data combined. These analyses, and coalescent-based species-tree inference methods implemented with *BEAST, largely resolve the relationships among them. We also carried out an examination of 19 morphological characters for 268 museum specimens from across Australia, including all 197 animals for which we sequenced mtDNA. The mtDNA clades differ subtly in a number of morphological features, and we describe three of them as new species, raise a fourth from synonymy, and redescribe it and the type species, Rhynchoedura ornata. We also describe a morphologically distinctive new species from Queensland based on very few specimens. The distribution of arid zone clades across what is now relatively homogeneous sand deserts seems to be related to a topographic divide between the western uplands and eastern lowlands, with species' distributions correlated with dryland rivers and major drainage divides. The existence of five cryptic species within the formerly monotypic Rhynchoedura points to ancient divergences within the arid zone that likely were driven by wet phases as well as dry ones.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)810-822
    Number of pages13
    JournalMolecular Phylogenetics and Evolution
    Volume61
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Dec 2011

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Ancient drainages divide cryptic species in Australia's arid zone: Morphological and multi-gene evidence for four new species of Beaked Geckos (Rhynchoedura)'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this