Sunda-Papuan keelback snakes (Serpentes: Natricidae: Tropidonophis Jan 1863) include 20 species distributed from the Philippines south-east through the Moluccas to New Guinea and Australia. Diversity of this insular snake lineage peaks on the island of New Guinea. Previous phylogenetic studies incorporating Tropidonophis have been limited to multi-locus Sanger-sequenced datasets with broad squamate or family-level focus. We used a targeted-sequence capture approach to sequence thousands of nuclear ultraconserved elements (UCEs) to construct the most comprehensive sequence-based phylogenetic hypothesis for this genus and estimate ancestral biogeography. Phylogenies indicate the genus is monophyletic given recent taxonomic reassignment of Rhabdophis spilogaster to Tropidonophis. All UCE phylogenies recovered a monophyletic Tropidonophis with reciprocally monophyletic Philippine and New Guinean clades. Divergence dating and ancestral range estimation suggest dispersal to New Guinea from the Philippines to have occurred during the Mid-Miocene via the Oceanic Arc Terranes. From Late Miocene into the Pliocene the genus experienced rapid diversification from orogeny of the New Guinean Central Cordillera from Oceanic Arc Terrane accretion on the northern boundary of the Sahul Shelf. Future collecting of missing taxa from the Moluccas and Indonesian Papua will better the understanding of non-volant faunal biogeography and diversification in this tectonically complex Pacific arena.
New Guinea has been considered both as a refuge for mesic rainforest-associated lineages that contracted in response to the late Cenozoic aridification of Australia and as a centre of biotic diversification and radiation since the mid-Miocene or earlier. Here, we estimate the diversity and a phylogeny for the Australo-Papuan forest dragons (Sauria: Agamidae; ~20 species) in order to examine the following: (1) whether New Guinea and/or proto-Papuan Islands may have been a biogeographical refuge or a source for diversity in Australia; (2) whether mesic rainforest environments are ancestral to the entire radiation, as may be predicted by the New Guinea refuge hypothesis; and (3) more broadly, how agamid ecological diversity varies across the contrasting environments of Australia and New Guinea. Patterns of lineage distribution and diversity suggest that extinction in Australia, and colonization and radiation on proto-Papuan islands, have both shaped the extant diversity and distribution of forest dragons since the mid-Miocene. The ancestral biome for all Australo-Papuan agamids is ambiguous. Both rainforest and arid-adapted radiations probably started in the early Miocene. However, despite deep-lineage diversity in New Guinea rainforest habitats, overall species and ecological diversity is low when compared with more arid areas, with terrestrial taxa being strikingly absent.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10123856
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Biological Journal of the Linnean Society
- ISSN:
- 0024-4066
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract The butterfly tribe Candalidini is geographically restricted to Australia and mainland New Guinea and its adjacent islands. With 60 species and subspecies, it represents a large radiation of Papilionoidea in the Australian region. Although the species‐level taxonomy is relatively well understood, the number of genera is uncertain, varying from two to eight. We reconstructed the phylogeny of the Candalidini based on a 13‐locus hybrid enrichment probe set (12.8 Kbp: COI, Thiolase, CAD, CAT, DDC, EF1‐a, GAPDH, HCL, IDH, MDH, RPS2, RPS5, Wingless), including all previously recognized genera and 76% (28/37) of the species‐level diversity of the tribe. Maximum likelihood analysis recovered the Candalidini as a strongly supported monophyletic group. In conjunction with morphological characters, the phylogeny provided a robust framework for a revised classification in which we recognize four genera, 37 species and 23 subspecies. The genus
Nesolycaena Waterhouse & R.E. Turner is considered in synonymy withCandalides Hübner, and four other genera are not recognized, namely,Holochila C. Felder,Adaluma Tindale,Zetona Waterhouse andMicroscena Tite. Of the four valid genera, theabsimilis group (23 species) is placed in the newly described genusEirmocides Braby, Espeland & Müllergen. nov. (type speciesCandalides consimilis Waterhouse). Theerinus group (six species) is assigned toErina Swainson, which is reinstated.Chrysophanus cyprotus Olliff is assigned toCyprotides Tite, which is also reinstated as a monotypic genus. The remaining seven species are placed inCandalides sensu stricto . Overall, we propose 47 new nomenclatural changes at the species and subspecies levels, including the synonymy ofHolochila biaka Tite asEirmocides tringa biaka (Tite)syn. nov. et comb. nov. and recognition ofCandalides hyacinthinus gilesi M.R. Williams & Bollam as a distinct speciesErina gilesi (M.R. Williams & Bollamstat. rev. et comb. nov. A dated phylogeny using Bayesian inference in BEAST2 and biogeographical and habitat analyses based on the DEC model in BioGeoBEARS indicated that the ancestor of the Candalidini most likely evolved in rainforest habitats of the mesic biome in situ on the Australian plate of Southern Gondwana during the Eocene (c. 43 Ma). A major period of diversification occurred in the Miocene, which coincided with aridification of the Australian continent, followed by a further episode of radiation in montane New Guinea during the Plio‐Pleistocene.This published work has been registered on ZooBank by the authors: Michael Braby:
http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:author:4D3A7605‐EBD0‐40F6‐A5F2‐7F67F59E3D60 ;Marianne Espeland:
http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:author:00D6F9F9‐3902‐4A8B‐846F‐720AB32922A6 ;Chris Müller:
http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:author:15FE5F26‐7596‐46C2‐9697‐1FD92A692D0D ;http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:47D5CA34‐C294‐4FBD‐84B6‐1C2A82B7CADF . -
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