Abstract
Alien species are among the greatest threats to biodiversity, but the evolutionary origins of invasiveness remain obscure. We conducted the first range-wide sampling of Hemidactylus mabouia from more than 120 localities across Africa, Madagascar and the Neotropics to understand the evolutionary history of one of the most widely distributed, invasive vertebrates in the world. We used a multi-locus phylogeny, species delimitation, fossil-calibrated timetree, ancestral area reconstruction and species distribution models (SDMs) to determine how many putative species-level lineages are contained within H. mabouia, the timing and tempo of diversification, and the origins of commensality—providing insights into the evolutionary origins of invasiveness. Our analyses suggest ‘H. mabouia’ originated in the Miocene in the Zambezian biogeographic region and includes as many as 20 putative species-level lineages, of which only Hemidactylus mabouia sensu stricto is invasive and widely distributed, including all Neotropical records. Zambezia is the hotspot for diversity within the group with 14 species in southeastern Zambezia. SDMs suggest that H. mabouia was able to establish in the Neotropics due to habitat suitability, and globalization and the slave trade probably allowed it to cross the Atlantic. Distribution models for the H. mabouia complex overpredict the range of the invasive H. mabouia sensu stricto—highlighting the importance of taxonomy in invasive species management.
Highlights
Alien species are among the most prevalent threats associated with vertebrate extinctions in the Anthropocene [1]
Our goal was to contrast the species distribution models (SDMs) built using our phylogenetically informed taxon subsets with each other to explore the questions: (i) does the realized spatial niche of H. mabouia ss in Africa allow it to inhabit the New World, (ii) is its absence from Zambezia a sampling artefact or linked to suitability, and (iii) what impact can incorrect taxonomy have on modelling the distribution of an invasive species? We evaluated the models using the area under the curve (AUC) for the test and training data on the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC > 0.9)
The only major discordance between the nuclear and ND2 data is in the placement of a H. platycephalus group specimen from Mozambique, sister to the H. mabouia complex in the nuclear tree and sister to the African-Atlantic clade in the ND2 tree
Summary
Alien species are among the most prevalent threats associated with vertebrate extinctions in the Anthropocene [1]. Include some of the most invasive species of reptiles, and in some cases, there are known or predicted 2 negative consequences of the invasives on native geckos While the natural biogeographic history of the group has involved numerous overwater intercontinental dispersals at both recent and deep timescales [8,9], the globally distributed species are human commensals that have established across many parts of the world in the recent past in association with mass transportation of goods and people Older, yet still anthropogenically mediated historical movement of Hemidactylus spp. has been implicated; Hemidactylus flaviviridis was established in North Africa at least two centuries ago [15] but has an Indian origin [8,16] and H. robustus and other congeners have been proposed to have expanded along ancient Middle Eastern caravan routes [17,18]
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