Molecular species delimitation of shrub frogs of the genus Pseudophilautus (Anura, Rhacophoridae).

ABSTRACT: Sri Lanka is an amphibian hotspot of global significance. Its anuran fauna is dominated by the shrub frogs of the genus Pseudophilautus. Except for one small clade of four species in Peninsular India, these cool-wet adapted frogs, numbering some 59 extant species, are distributed mainly across the montane and lowland rain forests of the island. With species described primarily by morphological means, the diversification has never yet been subjected to a molecular species delimitation analysis, a procedure now routinely applied in taxonomy. Here we test the species boundaries of Pseudophilautus in the context of the phylogenetic species concept (PSC). We use all the putative species for which credible molecular data are available (nDNA-Rag-1; mt-DNA- 12S rRNA, 16S rRNA) to build a well reso

SUBMITTER: Ellepola G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8525734 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature