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- Title
RIGHTING SOME WRONGS: PHYLOGENETICS HELPS REDEFINE THE DISTRIBUTIONS OF BANDED GECKOS ACROSS SOUTH AFRICA.
- Authors
da Silva, Jessica M.; Taft, Jody M.; Weeber, Josh; Le Grange, Anja; Telford, Nicolas; Tolley, Krystal A.
- Abstract
The Pachydactylus mariquensis species complex is comprised of four species, namely P. mariquensis, P. latirostris, P. macrolepis, and P. amoenus that occur in Northern, Western Cape and Free State provinces of South Africa. Pachydactylus mariquensis and P. latirostris are both widespread, while P. macrolepis and P. amoenus have small distributions. The former two species have a substantial geographic overlap zone in the Great Karoo, while the latter two probably have overlapping geographic ranges in the northwest, but locality data are sparse making it difficult to understand their ranges. Recent phylogenetic work shows all these species to be genetically well differentiated, with some specimens having been misidentified, calling into question the validity of the geographic overlap zones and the distribution of these species. We examined the extent of these species distributions and associated overlap zones by combining phylogenetic, taxonomic and species distribution modelling (SDM) approaches using comprehensive geographic sampling. Bayesian and maximum likelihood analyses were run using two mitochondrial markers (16S and ND2) for 37 samples. The SDMs were run in MaxEnt using a dataset of 132 locality records for P. mariquensis and P. latirostris. The phylogenetic analysis highlighted several misidentifications between P. latirostris, P. mariquensis and P. macrolepis. The large overlap zone previously shown on distribution maps for P. mariquensis and P. latirostris in the Great Karoo was not as apparent once the phylogenetic analysis was used to assign individuals. Indeed, the distributions of the two species overlap in a very narrow region below the Great Escarpment. Moreover, the distribution of P. macrolepis extends farther south along the west coast, possibly overlapping with P. mariquensis. Thus, our previous understanding of the distributions and overlap within this species complex is likely due to misidentifications.
- Subjects
SOUTH Africa; SPECIES distribution; GECKOS; ECOLOGICAL zones; RIGHT &; wrong; PHYLOGENY
- Publication
African Herp News, 2019, Issue 72, p56
- ISSN
1017-6187
- Publication type
Article