Paleoclimate determines diversification patterns in the fossorial snake family Uropeltidae Cuvier, 1829

Cyriac, Vivek Philip; Kodandaramaiah, Ullasa

doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2017.08.017

Cited by 24 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 108 publications

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“…As fossorial taxa are highly specialized to their environments, they may be highly vulnerable to drastic above ground environmental fluctuations. This idea is corroborated by recent diversification analyses on the fossorial snake family Uropeltidae, which indicate that the group experienced high relative extinction rates during prolonged periods of environmental fluctuations (Cyriac & Kodandaramaiah, ). The current analyses renders further support to this hypothesis by elucidating an association between fossoriality and higher extinction rates in snakes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 56%

Digging their own macroevolutionary grave: fossoriality as an evolutionary dead end in snakes

Cyriac

Kodandaramaiah

2018

J of Evolutionary Biology

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The tree of life is highly asymmetrical in its clade wise species richness, and this has often been attributed to variation in diversification rates either across time or lineages. Variations across lineages are usually associated with traits that increase lineage diversification. Certain traits can also hinder diversification by increasing extinction, and such traits are called evolutionary dead ends. Ecological specialization has usually been considered as an evolutionary dead end. However, recent analyses of specializations along single axes have provided mixed support for this model. Here, we test if fossoriality, a trait that forces specialization at multiple axes, acts as an evolutionary dead end in squamates (lizards and snakes) using recently developed phylogenetic comparative methods. We show that fossoriality is an evolutionary dead end in snakes but not in lizards. Fossorial snakes exhibit reduced speciation and increased extinction compared to nonfossorial snakes. Our analysis also indicates that transition rates from fossoriality to nonfossoriality in snakes are significantly lower than transition rates from nonfossoriality to fossoriality. Overall our results suggest that broad-scale ecological interactions that lead to specialization at multiple axes limit diversification.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 56%

Digging their own macroevolutionary grave: fossoriality as an evolutionary dead end in snakes

Cyriac

Kodandaramaiah

2018

J of Evolutionary Biology

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“…Sequences were edited manually in Geneious Prime (Biomatters). The newly generated sequence data were combined with the data for all species of Rhinophis, Plectrurus and Pseudoplectrurus that were analysed by Cyriac & Kodandaramaiah (2017) and Jins et al (2018;see Appendix 2).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Analyses for PartitionFinder, MrBayes and Garli were carried out in the Cipres Science Gateway v. 3.1 (Miller et al 2010). Trees were rooted with Plectrurus + Pseudoplectrurus, based on phylogenetic results reported by Cyriac & Kodandaramaiah (2017) and Jins et al (2018).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Uropeltids, or shieldtails, are typically small (total length < 600 mm) fossorial snakes endemic to Sri Lanka and peninsular India. The approximately 60 currently recognised species are classified into seven or eight genera (Pyron et al 2016;Cyriac & Kodandaramaiah 2017). All uropeltid genera occur in India, with only one genus occurring also in Sri Lanka, Rhinophis Hemprich, 1820 (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A new Indian species of Rhinophis Hemprich, 1820 closely related to R. sanguineus Beddome, 1863 (Serpentes: Uropeltidae)

Sampaio

Narayanan

Cyriac

et al. 2020

Zootaxa

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A new species of the uropeltid (shieldtail snake) genus Rhinophis is described based on a type series of seven specimens from the Wayanad region of the Western Ghats of peninsular India. The holotype was collected before 1880 but had been misidentified as the phenotypically similar and parapatric (possibly partly sympatric) R. sanguineus. Rhinophis karinthandani sp. nov. is diagnosed by a combination of 15 dorsal scale rows at midbody, 4–8 pairs of subcaudal scales, colour pattern (uniformly dark above, whitish below with extensive dark mottling), and by its distinct mitochondrial DNA sequences (e.g. >7.6% uncorrected p-distance for nd4). Phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA sequence data indicates that the new species is most closely related to R. sanguineus among currently recognised species, with this pair most closely related to the partly sympatric R. melanoleucus. The new species description brings the number of currently recognised species in the genus to 24, six of which are endemic to India and 18 endemic to Sri Lanka. A new key to the identification of Indian species of Rhinophis is provided.

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“…During the late Miocene, dry and open grassland restricted lizards such as Sitana and Ophisops show increased diversification (Agarwal and Ramakrishnan, 2017;Deepak and Karanth, 2018), suggesting prevalence and expansion of open habitats during the late Miocene. Fossorial snakes that have a preference for mesic habitats showed a decrease in diversification and turnover rate from late Miocene to present (Cyriac and Kodandaramaiah, 2017). Apart from these handful of studies, our understanding of the evolution of dry habitat biota is limited.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eocene–Oligocene cooling and the diversification of Hemidactylus geckos in Peninsular India

Lajmi

Karanth

2020

Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution

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The Eocene-Oligocene cooling marks a global shift towards a cooler and drier climate, concurrent with significant turnover in biota globally. In Peninsular India, palynological investigations suggest a shift from wet rainforest vegetation to dry and seasonal species during this period. However, the grassland and open habitats that dominate this region at present expanded relatively recently due to Late Miocene intensification of monsoon seasonality. We test the possible role of these climatic shifts in generating the dry habitat diversity of an endemic radiation of Hemidactylus geckos distributed in both wet and dry habitats, by investigating whether (a) the beginning of the diversification of dry habitat lineages overlap with the Eocene-Oligocene cooling or late Miocene aridification and (b) accompanied by an increase in diversification. Molecular data (two nuclear and two mitochondrial gene fragments) were generated for samples collected across Peninsular India, and along with previously published data, a time-calibrated phylogeny was reconstructed. Ancestral state reconstruction of dry and wet habitat states was carried out on the time-calibrated phylogeny and γ-statistics along with a test for diversity-dependent diversification utilized to examine the trend in lineage accumulation. Results show the ancestral node of this radiation to have a dry habitat state, which began diversifying between 39 and 32 million years ago, concurrent with the Eocene-Oligocene cooling. Furthermore, lineage diversification fit a diversitydependent model of diversification and the γ-statistics revealed an early increase in diversification followed by a slowdown later. The deep divergences of dry habitat lineages concurrent with the Eocene-Oligocene cooling suggest that this could have served as an ecological opportunity facilitating an early increase in lineage diversification of Hemidactylus in this region. These results suggest an ancient origin and long persistence of arid ecosystems in Peninsular India.

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Paleoclimate determines diversification patterns in the fossorial snake family Uropeltidae Cuvier, 1829

Cited by 24 publications

References 108 publications

Digging their own macroevolutionary grave: fossoriality as an evolutionary dead end in snakes

Digging their own macroevolutionary grave: fossoriality as an evolutionary dead end in snakes

A new Indian species of Rhinophis Hemprich, 1820 closely related to R. sanguineus Beddome, 1863 (Serpentes: Uropeltidae)

Eocene–Oligocene cooling and the diversification of Hemidactylus geckos in Peninsular India

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