Spermatozoa of Pseudinae (Amphibia, Anura, Hylidae), with a test of the hypothesis that sperm ultrastructure correlates with reproductive modes in anurans

Abstract

We describe, for the first time, the sperm ultrastructure of the two genera of Pseudinae. Based on sperm ultrastructure, the five species herein examined can be separated into three groups: one containing Pseudis paradoxa, P. bolbodactyla, and P. tocantins, the second containing P. minuta, and the third containing Lysapsus laevis. The midpiece is similar in all species and auxiliary fibers and the undulating membrane are absent. In Pseudis a subacrosomal cone and a multilaminar structure (P. minuta) or a granular material (P. paradoxa group) are seen above the nucleus. Lysapsus laevis has only remnants of the subacrosomal cone. All species have peripheral fibers associated with the outer doublets of the axoneme. We tested the hypothesis of correlation between the presence of an undulating membrane and fertilization environments in anurans using a concentrated changes test (CCT) based on the Hay et al. (Mol Biol Evol 1995;12:928-937) hypothesis of phylogenetic relationships among anuran families. Only a subset of the resolved topologies derived from the Hay et al. (1995) cladogram, where Ranoidea is the sister-group of Sooglossidae, produced significant probabilities of the CCT. Therefore, support for the correlation between sperm ultrastructure and fertilization environments in anurans is, at best, equivocal.

Ultrastructure variation in the spermatozoa ofPseudopaludicolafrogs (Amphibia, Anura, Leptodactylidae), with brief comments on its phylogenetic relevance

“…In recent years, the description of the ultrastructure of the spermatozoa of some anuran groups has contributed to the understanding of the relationships among taxa of a given family (Scheltinga, ; Scheltinga and Jamieson, ), as well as the intergeneric and intrageneric relationship in Pseudis (Garda et al, ), Crossodactylus , Megaelosia , and Hylodes (Aguiar‐Junior et al, ), Colostethus (Veiga‐Menoncello et al, ), Dendrobates (Lipke et al, ), Leptodactylus , and Lithodytes (Salles, ). Scheltinga and Jamieson () concluded that the definition of phylogenetic relationships based exclusively on ultrastructural characters of spermatozoa would likely result in numerous homoplasies.…”

Phylogeny and biogeography of paradoxical frogs (Anura, Hylidae, Pseudae) inferred from 12S and 16S mitochondrial DNA

“…Partial surveys of external morphology (Caramaschi and da Cruz, 1998;Klappenbach, 1985;Savage and de Carvalho, 1953), sperm ultrastructure (Garda et al, 2004), and molecular data (Faivovich et al, 2005) were available for some species, and tentative synapomorphies were presented in these assessments. Faivovich et al (2005) argued that current data do not unambiguously separate the two genera and that their monophyly warrants corroboration.…”

“…He considered the paired vocal sac and the absence of carpal tubercles in P. minuta important for generic relationships, but preferred to place minuta in Pseudis because of the remaining ten characters that it shared with this genus. Garda et al (2004) studied Pseudae sperm ultrastructure and found P. minuta distinct from Lysapsus and Pseudis, with a large subacrosomal cone and a distinct multilaminar structure above the nucleus. Hence, a considerable number of distinguishing morphological characters exist for P. minuta and P. cardosoi.…”

A comparative ultrastructural analysis of spermatozoa in Pleurodema (Anura, Leptodactylidae, Leiuperinae)

“…This spermatozoon, characterized by the presence of both accessory fibers and undulating membrane, was also related to internal fertilization and/or viscous fertilization environments (Jamieson et al, ; Lee and Jamieson, ). A simpler spermatozoon has been associated with aquatic fertilization environments (Jamieson et al, ; Lee and Jamieson, ; Scheltinga et al, ; Scheltinga and Jamieson, ; Garda et al, ). In Rhacophoridae, where the fertilization takes place in foam nests, neither accessory fibers nor an undulating membrane are present, but a packed core of satellite microtubules is observed surrounding the double axoneme (Mainoya, ; Mizuhira et al, ; Muto and Kubota, ).…”