Computational molecular species delimitation and taxonomic revision of the gecko genus Ebenavia Boettger, 1878

Abstract

Cryptic species have been detected in many groups of organisms and must be assumed to make up a significant portion of global biodiversity. We study geckos of the Ebenavia inunguis complex from Madagascar and surrounding islands and use species delimitation algorithms (GMYC, BOLD, BPP), COI barcode divergence, diagnostic codon indels in the nuclear marker PRLR, diagnostic categorical morphological characters, and significant differences in continuous morphological characters for its taxonomic revision. BPP yielded ≥ 10 operational taxonomic units, whereas GMYC (≥ 27) and BOLD (26) suggested substantial oversplitting. In consequnce, we resurrect Ebenavia boettgeri Boulenger 1885 and describe Ebenavia tuelinae sp. nov., Ebenavia safari sp. nov., and Ebenavia robusta sp. nov., increasing the number of recognised species in Ebenavia from two to six. Further lineages of Ebenavia retrieved by BPP may warrant species or subspecies status, but further taxonomic conclusions are postponed until more data become available. Finally, we present an identification key to the genus Ebenavia, provide an updated distribution map, and discuss the diagnostic values of computational species delimitation as well as morphological and molecular diagnostic characters.

The colonisation of Madagascar by land‐bound vertebrates

“…Concerning Ebenavia , more recent work by Hawlitschek et al . (2017, 2018) confirmed the suspicion of Crottini et al . (2012) that this genus was derived from Paroedura , indicating a single colonisation from Africa.…”

“…Due to a lack of phylogenetic data, three gecko genera, Ebenavia, Geckolepis and Paragehyra, were left out of the analysis of Crottini et al (2012). Concerning Ebenavia, more recent work by Hawlitschek et al (2017Hawlitschek et al ( , 2018 confirmed the suspicion of Crottini et al (2012) that this genus was derived from Paroedura, indicating a single colonisation from Africa. Those investigations also revealed a complicated biogeographical history with Ebenavia colonisations of the nearby Comoros Islands (Fig.…”

What DNA barcodes reveal: microhabitat preference, hunting strategy and dispersal ability drive genetic variation across Iberian spider species

“…However, while the BIN approach had a 'splitter' tendency (358 morphospecies in 441 BINs), the mPTP model tended to increase the 'merge' cases, generating fewer clusters than predefined morphospecies (371 morphospecies in 365 mPTP clusters). Single-locus species delimitation methods are known to overestimate species diversity because they likely reflect population structure rather than actual species (Carstens et al, 2013;Hawlitschek et al, 2018;Miralles and Vences, 2013). However, the BIN approach has been found to perform better in terms of correspondence with morphologically delimited species (Blagoev et al, 2013;Huang et al, 2019).…”

Cryptic diversity in ant‐mimic Micaria spiders (Araneae, Gnaphosidae) and a tribute to early naturalists

“…More importantly, molecular delimitation methods detect lineages, which must not necessarily correspond to species. It is well known that popular delineation methods that were designed for single-locus molecular data, such as GMYC, PTP and BIN, tend to overestimate species diversity (Carstens, Pelletier, Reid, & Satler, 2013;Hawlitschek, Scherz, Ruthensteiner, Crottini, & Glaw, 2018;Luo, Ling, Ho, & Zhu, 2018;Miralles & Vences, 2013). In a recent simulation study, Sukumaran and Knowles (2017) have convincingly shown that even the multispecies coalescent model, which is increasingly used with genomic data, consistently overestimated the number of true species due to misidentification of population structure for species entities.…”