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Multiple data revealed two new species of the Asian horned toad Megophrys Kuhl & Van Hasselt, 1822 (Anura, Megophryidae) from the eastern corner of the Himalayas

Multiple disciplines can help to discover cryptic species and resolve taxonomic confusions. The Asian horned toad genus Megophryssensu lato as a diverse group was proposed to contain dozens of cryptic species. Based on molecular phylogenetics, morphology, osteology, and bioacoustics data, the specie...

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Autores principales: Shi, Shengchao, Zhang, Meihua, Xie, Feng, Jiang, Jianping, Liu, Wulin, Li Ding, Luan, Li, Wang, Bin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Pensoft Publishers 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7596021/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33177944
http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.977.55693
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author Shi, Shengchao
Zhang, Meihua
Xie, Feng
Jiang, Jianping
Liu, Wulin
Li Ding,
Luan, Li
Wang, Bin
author_facet Shi, Shengchao
Zhang, Meihua
Xie, Feng
Jiang, Jianping
Liu, Wulin
Li Ding,
Luan, Li
Wang, Bin
author_sort Shi, Shengchao
collection PubMed
description Multiple disciplines can help to discover cryptic species and resolve taxonomic confusions. The Asian horned toad genus Megophryssensu lato as a diverse group was proposed to contain dozens of cryptic species. Based on molecular phylogenetics, morphology, osteology, and bioacoustics data, the species profiles of Megophrys toads in the eastern corner of Himalayas in Medog County, Tibet Autonomous Region, China was investigated. The results indicated that this small area harbored at least four Megophrys species, i.e., M. medogensis, M. pachyproctus, Megophrys zhouisp. nov., and Megophrys yeaesp. nov., the latter two being described in this study. Additionally, the mitochondrial DNA trees nested the low-middle-elevation and high-elevation groups of M. medogensis into a monophyletic group, being in discordance with the paraphyletic relationship between them revealed in the nuclear DNA trees. The findings highlighted the underestimated biodiversity in Himalayas, and further indicated that the Megophrys toads here have been probably experienced complicated evolutionary history, for example, introgression between clades or incomplete lineage sorting and niche divergences in microhabitats. Anyway, it is urgent for us to explore the problems because these toads are suffering from increasing threats from human activities and climatic changes.
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spelling pubmed-75960212020-11-10 Multiple data revealed two new species of the Asian horned toad Megophrys Kuhl & Van Hasselt, 1822 (Anura, Megophryidae) from the eastern corner of the Himalayas Shi, Shengchao Zhang, Meihua Xie, Feng Jiang, Jianping Liu, Wulin Li Ding, Luan, Li Wang, Bin Zookeys Research Article Multiple disciplines can help to discover cryptic species and resolve taxonomic confusions. The Asian horned toad genus Megophryssensu lato as a diverse group was proposed to contain dozens of cryptic species. Based on molecular phylogenetics, morphology, osteology, and bioacoustics data, the species profiles of Megophrys toads in the eastern corner of Himalayas in Medog County, Tibet Autonomous Region, China was investigated. The results indicated that this small area harbored at least four Megophrys species, i.e., M. medogensis, M. pachyproctus, Megophrys zhouisp. nov., and Megophrys yeaesp. nov., the latter two being described in this study. Additionally, the mitochondrial DNA trees nested the low-middle-elevation and high-elevation groups of M. medogensis into a monophyletic group, being in discordance with the paraphyletic relationship between them revealed in the nuclear DNA trees. The findings highlighted the underestimated biodiversity in Himalayas, and further indicated that the Megophrys toads here have been probably experienced complicated evolutionary history, for example, introgression between clades or incomplete lineage sorting and niche divergences in microhabitats. Anyway, it is urgent for us to explore the problems because these toads are suffering from increasing threats from human activities and climatic changes. Pensoft Publishers 2020-10-22 /pmc/articles/PMC7596021/ /pubmed/33177944 http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.977.55693 Text en Shengchao Shi, Meihua Zhang, Feng Xie, Jianping Jiang, Wulin Liu, Li Ding, Li Luan, Bin Wang http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Shi, Shengchao
Zhang, Meihua
Xie, Feng
Jiang, Jianping
Liu, Wulin
Li Ding,
Luan, Li
Wang, Bin
Multiple data revealed two new species of the Asian horned toad Megophrys Kuhl & Van Hasselt, 1822 (Anura, Megophryidae) from the eastern corner of the Himalayas
title Multiple data revealed two new species of the Asian horned toad Megophrys Kuhl & Van Hasselt, 1822 (Anura, Megophryidae) from the eastern corner of the Himalayas
title_full Multiple data revealed two new species of the Asian horned toad Megophrys Kuhl & Van Hasselt, 1822 (Anura, Megophryidae) from the eastern corner of the Himalayas
title_fullStr Multiple data revealed two new species of the Asian horned toad Megophrys Kuhl & Van Hasselt, 1822 (Anura, Megophryidae) from the eastern corner of the Himalayas
title_full_unstemmed Multiple data revealed two new species of the Asian horned toad Megophrys Kuhl & Van Hasselt, 1822 (Anura, Megophryidae) from the eastern corner of the Himalayas
title_short Multiple data revealed two new species of the Asian horned toad Megophrys Kuhl & Van Hasselt, 1822 (Anura, Megophryidae) from the eastern corner of the Himalayas
title_sort multiple data revealed two new species of the asian horned toad megophrys kuhl & van hasselt, 1822 (anura, megophryidae) from the eastern corner of the himalayas
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7596021/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33177944
http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.977.55693
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