Abstract
Taxonomists always have had intense discussions about how species should be delimited and recently many studies have used integrative approaches by combining molecular, morphological, and bioacoustic data. Although these studies are paramount for understanding species diversity, few of them actually formalize species delimitations to the final step of nomenclatural acts. Historically, the Neotropical frog genus Adenomera has been considered as a difficult taxonomic group because it comprises many morphologically similar species exhibiting high levels of intraspecific polymorphism. A recent work using molecular data shed light on the phylogenetic relationships within the genus and identified several lineages that may correspond to undescribed species but did not delimit species boundaries. In the Atlantic Forest, a clade formed by A. marmorata and two putative species (Adenomera sp. J and Adenomera sp. K) were identified. In this paper, we combine morphological, acoustic, and molecular data in order to evaluate species limits within this Atlantic Forest Adenomera clade. We provide a redescription of A. marmorata and restrict its type locality to the Tijuca Massif, in the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Our results do not support A. marmorata and the two candidate species as diagnosable distinct species. Therefore A. marmorata corresponds to a species with pronounced morphological and acoustic variation in the genus and a complex phylogeographic structure.
Highlights
The recent advent of integrative taxonomy has led to an intensive discussion about how scientists should delimit species (e.g. [3,4,5])
We aim to delimit the species Adenomera marmorata by evaluating the taxonomic status of the confirmed candidate species (CCS) defined by Fouquet et al [7], using an integrative taxonomy protocol based on a comprehensive dataset of phenotypic and molecular data
We examined if candidate species display signs of reproductive isolation by analyzing nuclear DNA, allele sharing, and network cohesion
Summary
The recent advent of integrative taxonomy (term formally introduced by [1] and [2]) has led to an intensive discussion about how scientists should delimit species (e.g. [3,4,5]). The recent advent of integrative taxonomy (term formally introduced by [1] and [2]) has led to an intensive discussion about how scientists should delimit species São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and Programa de Pos-Graduacão em Zoologia da UFMG gave field financing. C. has received scholarship from FAPESP (#2012/15763-7, #2015/13404-8, and #2017/08489-0). This work has benefited from an “Investissement d’Avenir” grant managed by Agence Nationale de la Recherche The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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