Cytonuclear discordance and historical demography of two brown frogs, Rana tagoi and R. sakuraii (Amphibia: Ranidae)

Abstract

Prior studies of mitochondrial genomic variation reveal that the Japanese brown frog Rana tagoi comprises a complex of cryptic species lineages, and that R. sakuraii arose from within this complex. Neither species forms a monophyletic group on the mitochondrial haplotype tree, precluding a simple explanation for the evolutionary origins of R. sakuraii. We present a more complete sampling of mitochondrial haplotypic variation (from the ND1 and 16S genes) plus DNA sequence variation for five nuclear loci (from the genes encoding NCX1, NFIA, POMC, SLC8A3, and TYR) to resolve the evolutionary histories of these species. We test hypotheses of population assignment (STRUCTURE) and isolation-with-migration (IM) using the more slowly evolving nuclear markers. These demographic analyses of nuclear genetic variation confirm species-level distinctness and integrity of R. sakuraii despite its apparent polyphyly on the mitochondrial haplotype tree. Divergence-time estimates from both the mitochondrial haplotypes and nuclear genomic markers suggest that R. sakuraii originated approximately one million years ago, and that incomplete sorting of mitochondrial haplotype lineages best explains non-monophyly of R. sakuraii mitochondrial haplotypes. Cytonuclear discordance elsewhere in R. tagoi reveals a case of mitochondrial introgression between two species lineages on Honshu. The earliest phylogenetic divergence within this species group occurred approximately four million years ago, followed by cladogenetic events in the Pliocene and early Pleistocene yielding 10–13 extant species lineages, including R. sakuraii as one of the youngest.