Abstract
Climate has a large impact on diversity and evolution of the world’s biota. The Eocene–Oligocene transition from tropical climate to cooler, drier environments was accompanied by global species turnover. A large number of Old World lacertid lizard lineages have diversified after the Eocene–Oligocene boundary. One of the most speciose reptile genera in the arid Palearctic, Acanthodactylus, contains two sub-Saharan species with unresolved phylogenetic relationship and unknown climatic preferences. We here aim to understand how and when adaptation to arid conditions occurred in Acanthodactylus and when tropical habitats where entered. Using whole mitogenomes from fresh and archival DNA and published sequences we recovered a well-supported Acanthodactylus phylogeny and underpinned the timing of diversification with environmental niche analyses of the sub-Saharan species A. guineensis and A. boueti in comparison to all arid Acanthodactylus. We found that A. guineensis represents an old lineage that splits from a basal node in the Western clade, and A. boueti is a derived lineage and probably not its sister. Their long branches characterize them—and especially A. guineensis—as lineages that may have persisted for a long time without further diversification or have undergone multiple extinctions. Environmental niche models verified the occurrence of A. guineensis and A. boueti in hot humid environments different from the other 42 arid Acanthodactylus species. While A. guineensis probably remained in tropical habitat from periods prior to the Eocene–Oligocene boundary, A. boueti entered tropical environments independently at a later period. Our results provide an important baseline for studying adaptation and the transition from humid to arid environments in Lacertidae.
Highlights
The world’s biota is largely influenced by the environment, including climate and its change over time and space (e.g.1)
We aimed to achieve a reliable understanding of the evolutionary relationships of Acanthodactylus spp. in general and resolve the phylogenetic position of A. guineensis using whole mitogenomes of A. guineensis, A. schmidti, twelve lacertid taxa assembled over the course of a previous s tudy[6] and published data on mitogenomes and common mitochondrial marker genes of crucial additional taxa
With the improved phylogeny as a backbone, we aimed to compare the environmental niche of both sub-Saharan species A. guineensis and A. boueti with all arid-adapted Acanthodactylus spp. in order to evaluate the climatic history and adaptation of this diverse and widespread genus
Summary
The world’s biota is largely influenced by the environment, including climate and its change over time and space (e.g.1). Present and past climatic conditions are influential in shaping diversity, distribution, physiology and molecular evolution of ectothermic animals, as recently exemplified in lizards of the family L acertidae[6]. This family of Old World lizards is the most diverse and ubiquitous squamate group in the western Palearctic, and in addition colonized almost the whole of Asia and the African m ainland[6,7,8,9]. A large number of lacertid lineages have adapted to the cooler temperatures after the Eocene–Oligocene boundary[6] Among these lineages, the genus Acanthodactylus Wiegmann, 1834 is one of the most diverse and widespread diurnal reptiles in the arid regions from the Iberian Peninsula through North Africa, Arabia and the Middle East to western India. The genus is generally referred to as arid-adapted and sand-living[14, 16,17,18], exceptionally occupying more compact soils[14, 18] and even relatively mesic habitats (i.e. the A. erythrurus group with A. erythrurus (Schinz, 1833), A. savignyi (Audouin, 1827), A. boueti Chabanaud, 1917 and A. guineensis (Boulenger, 1887) ( fide[18])
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