DNA barcoding Madagascar’s amphibian fauna

Abstract

We provide a DNA barcoding survey of Malagasy amphihians, including 251 of the 292 nominal species known to date, by complementing previous data with 280 newly determined barcoding sequence fragments of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene. Amplification success for the newly determined sequences was highest (94%) with one set of universal COI primers (dgLCO 1490-dgHCO2198) while other primer sets had distinetly lower success rates. By and large, we observed relatively high average interspecific genetie distances of 25-27% within the Mantellidae and Mierohylidae, and genetic distances of 13-21 % within the Hyperoliidae. Lower values of 6-7% were observed between some sister species in all families, with extreme lows of 0.2-0.3% between a few sister species pairs in microhylids and mantellids for which we postulate mitochondrial introgression or yet unsettled taxonomy. Within-species divergences were relatively high especially in mantellids where they averaged 5.3%, due to the inclusion of numerous deep conspeeifie lineages (by definition with high divergences to other specimens) in our study. Above this, the degree of polymorphism was difficult to establish owing to limited sampling per population in our assessment. Compared to a previous assessment from 2009 based on 16S rDNA sequenees, we identify 14 additional undescribed candidate species and raise the maximum estimate of species in the island's batrachofauna to well over 500.

A new frog species of the subgenus Asperomantis (Anura, Mantellidae, Gephyromantis) from the Bealanana District of northern Madagascar

“…It is apparent however that specimens from Antsahan'i Ledy and Ampotsidy, representing G. sp. Ca28 in the original sense (Perl et al 2014), are distinct from all currently described Gephyromantis species. We therefore describe this form as a new species in the following.…”

“…spinifer (Blommers-Schlösser &Blanc, 1991). A sixth species that was identified by Perl et al (2014), G. sp. Ca28, clearly belongs to this subgenus as well based on its morphology and genetic affinities .…”

Resurrection and re-description of Plethodontohyla laevis (Boettger, 1913) and transfer of Rhombophryne alluaudi (Mocquard, 1901) to the genus Plethodontohyla (Amphibia, Microhylidae, Cophylinae)

“…materials 1,3,6 Remarks. Sequences of this species have been referred to as Plethodontohyla bipunctata Andohahela by Wollenberg et al (2008), Vieites et al (2009), Perl et al (2014 and Scherz et al (2016a). Blommers-Schlöss-er (1975) referred to a specimen from Ampasinambo (20°31'25.0"S, 048°01'13.7"E) as P. brevipes, but later corrected this to P. alluaudi (Blommers-Schlösser and Blanc 1991).…”

“…At present, only two other candidate species are known from Plethodontohyla (one from Tsaratanana and P. sp. Ca01 from Ambatolahy and Imaloka, which might be conspecific with P. alluaudi), but preliminary results suggest that the undescribed diversity in this genus is still widely unexplored and it will probably wind up being as great as it was for Rhombophryne (Vieites et al 2009, Perl et al 2014, with at least four additional undescribed species still awaiting formal description (A. Crottini et al unpublished data). With this much-needed clarification of these historical names, we are now finally able to make larger progress on the taxonomy of this genus.…”

“…Recent studies (Vieites et al 2009, Perl et al 2014 have provided DNA barcoding reference sequences for almost all described and undescribed frog species of Madagascar and have highlighted the presence of a large taxonomic gap in the Cophylinae, which currently comprises over 100 described species (Scherz et al 2016a, AmphibiaWeb 2018, but which has an estimated further > 40 species yet to be formally described. In spite of the recent efforts in revising the systematics of this subfamily (e.g.…”