Abstract
One of the many taxonomic challenges found in the Dendropsophus microcephalus species group is the Dendropsophus walfordi distinction from D. nanus. Recent phylogenetic inferences have indicated the paraphyly of these species, although they were not designed to assess this issue. To contribute to the delimitation of these species, we analyzed the 12S, 16S and COI mitochondrial genes, the morphological traits, and the advertisement calls of specimens from northern Amazonia to Argentina, including the type localities of D. nanus and D. walfordi. Paraphyly of D. nanus with respect to D. walfordi was inferred by maximum-parsimony and Bayesian analyses, and five major clades exhibiting nonoverlapping geographic distributions were recognized. The bPTP and ABGD analyses supported the existence of five independently evolving lineages in this complex. Acoustic and morphological data clearly distinguished the clade that included the topotypes of D. walfordi from the others, corroborating the validity of this species. To avoid the paraphyly of D. nanus with respect to D. walfordi, we recognize the clade distributed from central-southern Brazil to Argentina as D. nanus, the clade distributed in Amazonia as D. walfordi, and discuss the existence of unnamed cryptic species closely related to D. nanus and D. walfordi.
Highlights
In the Bayesian, maximum-parsimony and BEAST analyses, the specimens of the Dendropsophus nanus–D. walfordi species complex were grouped into five major clades, named
It is worth noting that the two specimens of D. walfordi from the type locality (Forte Príncipe da Beira, Costa Marques, state of Rondônia, Brazil) were recovered in Lineage D, and the specimen of D. nanus from the type locality
In all our phylogenetic inferences, the specimens assigned to the D. nanus–D. walfordi species complex were grouped into five major clades (Lineages A–E), which exhibited nonoverlapping geographic distributions
Summary
Phylogenetic approaches are powerful tools for species delimitation [1,2], and DNA sequence analysis has allowed a significant improvement in this context, either by revealing previously undescribed species (e.g., [3,4,5,6]) or supporting synonymizations (e.g., [7]). Such DNA-based analyses, are accessory tools in taxonomic studies and should not be taken separately from other sources of data, including acoustic and morphological ones (for a review, see [8]). Jansen and colleagues [11] and Schulze and colleagues [12] suggested the presence of unnamed species related to D. nanus in Bolivia, and phylogenetic analyses based on DNA sequences have recovered D. nanus as paraphyletic with respect to
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