Karstic Landscapes Are Foci of Species Diversity in the World’s Third-Largest Vertebrate Genus Cyrtodactylus Gray, 1827 (Reptilia: Squamata; Gekkonidae)

Lee Grismer,Nikolay Poyarkov,Jing Che,Fred Kraus,Olivier Pauwels,Paul Oliver,Suranjan Karunarathna,Awal Riyanto,Shuo Qi,Minh Le,Jesse Grismer,Siriwadee Chomdej,Shuo Liu,Evan Quah,Chatmongkon Suwannapoom,Perry Wood

doi:10.3390/d13050183

Abstract

Karstic landscapes are immense reservoirs of biodiversity and range-restricted endemism. Nowhere is this more evident than in the world’s third-largest vertebrate genus Cyrtodactylus (Gekkonidae) which contains well over 300 species. A stochastic character mapping analysis of 10 different habitat preferences across a phylogeny containing 344 described and undescribed species recovered a karst habitat preference occurring in 25.0% of the species, whereas that of the other eight specific habitat preferences occurred in only 0.2–11.0% of the species. The tenth category—general habitat preference—occurred in 38.7% of the species and was the ancestral habitat preference for Cyrtodactylus and the ultimate origin of all other habitat preferences. This study echoes the results of a previous study illustrating that karstic landscapes are generators of species diversity within Cyrtodactylus and not simply “imperiled arks of biodiversity” serving as refugia for relics. Unfortunately, the immense financial returns of mineral extraction to developing nations largely outweighs concerns for biodiversity conservation, leaving approximately 99% of karstic landscapes with no legal protection. This study continues to underscore the urgent need for their appropriate management and conservation. Additionally, this analysis supports the monophyly of the recently proposed 31 species groups and adds one additional species group.

Highlights

The dramatic topography of karstic landscapes composes some of the most surreal images of our world and has stirred the emotions of ancient artisans and natural historians for time on end
We refine some of the criteria for designating habitat preference used by Grismer et al [6] based on newly acquired data from recent publications and fieldwork
The Maximum likelihood (ML) analysis recovered a new clade, designated here as the tibetanus group, that is composed of Cyrtodactylus tibetanus, C. cf

Summary

Introduction

The dramatic topography of karstic landscapes composes some of the most surreal images of our world and has stirred the emotions of ancient artisans and natural historians for time on end. Asia contains 8.35 million km of karstic habitat with some of the most extensive concentrations ranging from China to western Melanesia (Figure 2). These formations are notable for their fragmented, island-like nature, with hills, caves, and towers forming archipelagos of habitat-islands stretching across broad geographic areas. This, and their fractured and eroded surfaces—which provide a myriad of microhabitats in which many taxonomic groups have specialized—have contributed to their extraordinarily high degrees of range-restricted endemism [2,3,4,5]. A stochastic character mapping analysis of habitat preference using 243 species of the gekkonid genus Cyrtodactylus—

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion