Molecular phylogeny of Ischnocnema (Anura: Brachycephalidae) with the redefinition of its series and the description of two new species

Abstract

We present a new phylogenetic hypothesis for Ischnocnema, a Neotropical brachycephaloid genus of ground-dwelling direct-developing frogs. We performed Bayesian inference, maximum likelihood, and maximum parsimony analyses using two nuclear (RAG1 and Tyr) and three mitochondrial genes (12S rRNA, tRNA-Val, and 16S rRNA) in a matrix comprising more than 80% of the described species. We recover Ischnocnema nanahallux outside the Ischnocnema parva series, and it is now unassigned to any species series, nor are Ischnocnema manezinho and Ischnocnema sambaqui. We propose the Ischnocnema venancioi species series to comprise Ischnocnema venancioi, Ischnocnema hoehnei, and two new species described herein (Ischnocnema parnaso sp. nov. and Ischnocnema colibri sp. nov.). Furthermore, we designate a lectotype for I. venancioi. The nuptial pad present in males is an important character in the genus, and having a large, conspicuous, and glandular-appearing nuptial pad seems to be a synapomorphy for the clade composed of the I. parva, Ischnocnema guentheri, and the newly proposed I. venancioi series.

The mitochondrial genomes of five frog species of the Neotropical genus Ischnocnema (Anura: Brachycephaloidea: Brachycephalidae)

“…The only clade in our phylogeny that did not receive strong support was I. nasuta + I. oea, but only in the ML analysis (56% of bootstrap replicates). These results are congruent with the previous phylogenetic hypothesis encompassing all these Ischnocnema species based on a selection of mitochondrial and nuclear genes (Canedo and Haddad 2012 Taucce et al 2018 ). The mitogenomes assembled here provide important information regarding the relationships within the I. guentheri species series and their genomic evolution.…”

“…The Neotropical genus Ischnocnema (Reinhardt and L€ utken 1862) comprises 37 species (Frost 2018) of leaf-litter dwelling frogs divided into five species series and three species unassigned to any series (Taucce at al. 2018).…”

“…The Neotropical genus Ischnocnema (Reinhardt and Lütken 1862 ) comprises 37 species (Frost 2018 ) of leaf-litter dwelling frogs divided into five species series and three species unassigned to any series (Taucce at al. 2018 ). Within this genus, the I. guentheri series comprises 10 species distributed all over the southern and central portions of the Atlantic Forest, throughout seven Brazilian states and the Argentinean province of Misiones (Frost 2018 ).…”

Notes on vocalizations of Brazilian amphibians IV: advertisement calls of 20 Atlantic Forest frog species

“…Ischnocnema concolor and I. melanopygia are members of the I. lactea species series (Padial, Grant & Frost, 2014; Taucce et al, 2018), and both species have calls with harmonic notes, differing strictly in note duration and spectral band. While some species as I. concolor and I. vizitoi have calls composed only by one non-pulsed harmonic note, I. melanopygia may have calls formed by a sequence of three to five of these notes (Martins & Haddad, 2010).…”

A new terraranan genus from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest with comments on the systematics of Brachycephaloidea (Amphibia: Anura)

“…PCR program was a 3-min initial denaturing step at 95°C, followed by 35-38 (nuclear 42-45) cycles of 20 s at 95°C, 20 s at 50-56°C, and 45 (fragments around 500 bp) or 80 s (fragments around 1,000 bp) at 68°C, followed by a final extension step of 3 min at 68°C. For the RAG1, we used a nested-PCR program following Taucce et al (2018). We built our 12S-tVal-16S fragment based on three to five fragments of ca.…”