Prevalence of cryptic species in morphologically uniform taxa – Fast speciation and evolutionary radiation in Asian frogs

A new Megophrys Kuhl & Van Hasselt (Amphibia, Megophryidae) from southeastern China

“…nov. brings the total number of species in the genus to 93, with 49 of them recorded in China (Fei et al 2016;Frost 2019). Yet, there remain still dozens of undescribed species just in China (Chen et al 2017;Liu et al 2018). As noted, the new species was a newly-found clade which has not been reported in previous phylogenetic works although it belongs to the subgenus Panophrys according to our phylogenetic frameworks and previous classifications Liu et al 2018).…”

“…For molecular analyses, the available sequence data for all related species of the genus Megophrys were downloaded from GenBank, mainly from previous studies (Chen et al 2017;Mahony et al 2017;Liu et al 2018;Wang et al 2019; for GenBank accession number see Table 1). For phylogenetic analyses, corresponding sequences of one Leptobrachella oshanensis and one Leptobrachium boringii were downloaded (for GenBank accession number see Table 1) and used as outgroups according to Chen et al (2017).…”

“…Megophryidae Bonaparte, 1850 (Amphibia: Anura) is a large Asian toad family which was divided into three subfamilies, i.e., Leptobrachiinae Dubois, 1983, Leptolalaginae Delorme, Dubois, Grosjean & Ohler, 2006and Megophryinae Bonaparte, 1850(Delorme et al 2006. The generic and/or subgeneric classifications in Megophryinae have been under debates for a long time (Tian and Hu 1983;Dubois 1987Dubois "1986Lathrop 1997;Rao and Yang 1997;Dubois and Ohler 1998;Jiang et al 2003;Delorme et al 2006;Frost et al 2006;Fei and Ye 2009, 2016Chen et al 2017;Mahony et al 2017;Liu et al 2018;Munir et al 2018) though recent phylogenetic studies clustered all recognised species of Megophryinae into one big clade (e.g., Chen et al 2017;Mahony et al 2017;Li et al 2018). Mahony et al (2017) classified all members of Megophryinae into a single genus Megophrys Kuhl & Van Hasselt, 1822 including seven subgenera (Megophrys, Xenophrys Günther, 1864, Panophrys Rao & Yang, 1997, Atympanophrys Tian & Hu, 1983, Ophryophryne Boulenger, 1908, Pelobatrachus Beddard, 1908(1907, and Brachytarsophrys Tian & Hu, 1983) based on molecular phylogenetics and morphological comparisons.…”

“…It currently contains 92 recognised species (Frost 2019), and noticeably, 37 species were described in the last decade (See species list of Megophrys in Frost 2019). The genus is suggested to harbour both cryptic diversity and highly localised species diversification (Chen et al 2017;Mahony et al 2017Mahony et al , 2018Liu et al 2018). For example, in the genus, just in China, 41 cryptic species were suggested by molecular phylogenetic analyses in , and six of them were subsequently described (Li et al 2018;Wang et al 2019).…”

Phylogenomics supports a Cenozoic rediversification of the “living fossil” Isoetes

“…Analyses of DNA sequences over the last few decades have resolved the phylogenetic relationships between many extant lineages, and large numbers of selectively neutral changes in the genomes allowed inferring accurate phylogenies even for the most morphologically uniform organisms [21,22]. Molecular divergence in parts of the tree with informative fossils 65 can then be used to time-calibrate molecular changes in the rest of the tree, allowing inference of divergence times of groups of organisms lacking an appropriate fossil record [23][24][25][26].…”