Abstract
Methods for morphological identification of water frogs from the Pelophylax esculentus complex have changed over the decades. Still, without resort to genetic analyses, water frogs remain among the most difficult European amphibians to distinguish due to their hybrid nature. The aim of this study was to identify a reliable set of quantitative and qualitative morphological characters that objectively resolve species? identification in the Pelophylax esculentus complex and provide a rapid and robust procedure for taxon identification. Our results showed a substantial difference in morphological characteristics among taxa. The shape and size of the metatarsal tubercle along with the coloration of the hind limbs and flanks appear to be the most important diagnostic traits. Linear discriminant analysis with both quantitative and qualitative traits as a rapid method for the assessment of water frog taxa showed satisfactory accuracy and prediction classification for all 3 members of the complex.
Highlights
Morphological variability, as a general biological phenomenon, is still at the forefront of research in many subject areas of biology (McCarthy and Mason-Gamer, 2019; Stanchak and Santana, 2019; Whelan et al, 2019)
According to the results of Hierarchical clustering on principal components (HCPC) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA), we identified the phenotypic patterns for parental taxa
Some authors (Krizmanić, 2008a) reported that P. esculentus is morphologically closer to P. ridibundus than to P. lessonae
Summary
Morphological variability, as a general biological phenomenon, is still at the forefront of research in many subject areas of biology (McCarthy and Mason-Gamer, 2019; Stanchak and Santana, 2019; Whelan et al, 2019). Recent studies of frogs from the Pelophylax esculentus complex have been mainly focused on the identification and characterization of genetic variability, DNA contents, and genomic composition (Ragghianti et al, 1995, 2007; Bucci et al, 2000; Ogielska et al, 2004; Marracci et al, 2011; Dedukh and Krasikova, 2017) The focus of these studies, did not provide advances in efficient and fast identification of frogs in field conditions or the laboratory (Günther 1990; Plöther 2005), both parental species, as well as the hybrid, are seemingly well-differentiated genetically (Uzzell and Berger, 1975; Uzzell et al, 1975; Gunther et al, 199; Spasić Bošković et al, 1999; Krizmanić and Ivanović, 2010; Kierzkowski et al, 2011, 2013). Genetic identification requires wellequipped laboratories, sufficient funding, and competent research staff to efficiently perform the complex analyses necessary for identification
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