JOURNAL ARTICLE
RESEARCH SUPPORT, NON-U.S. GOV'T
RESEARCH SUPPORT, U.S. GOV'T, NON-P.H.S.
Add like
Add dislike
Add to saved papers

Molecular phylogenetics and dating of the problematic New Guinea microhylid frogs (Amphibia: Anura) reveals elevated speciation rates and need for taxonomic reclassification.

Asterophryinae is a large monophyletic subfamily of Anurans containing over 300 species distributed across one of the world's most geologically active areas - New Guinea and its satellite islands, Australia and the Philippines. The tremendous ecological and morphological diversity of this clade, with apparent specializations for burrowing, terrestrial, semi-aquatic, and arboreal lifestyle, suggests an evolutionary process of adaptive radiation. Despite this spectacular diversity, this and many other questions of evolutionary processes have received little formal study because until now the phylogeny of this spececies-rich clade has remained uncertain. Here we reconstruct a phylogeny for Asterophryinae with greatly increased taxon and genetic sampling relative to prior studies. We use Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian Inference methods to produce the most robust and comprehensive phylogeny to date containing 155 species using 3 nuclear and 2 mitochondrial loci. We also perform a time calibration analysis to estimate the age of the clade. We find support for the monophyly of Asterophryinae as well as need for taxonomic reclassification of several genera. Furthermore, we find increased rates of speciation across the clade supporting the hypothesis of rapid radiation. Lastly, we found that adding taxa to the analysis produced more robust phylogenetic results over adding loci.

Full text links

We have located links that may give you full text access.
Can't access the paper?
Try logging in through your university/institutional subscription. For a smoother one-click institutional access experience, please use our mobile app.

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

Mobile app image

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app

All material on this website is protected by copyright, Copyright © 1994-2024 by WebMD LLC.
This website also contains material copyrighted by 3rd parties.

By using this service, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.

Your Privacy Choices Toggle icon

You can now claim free CME credits for this literature searchClaim now

Get seemless 1-tap access through your institution/university

For the best experience, use the Read mobile app