Abstract
The mountain chicken frog (Leptodactylus fallax) is a critically endangered frog native to the Caribbean islands of Dominica and Montserrat. Over the past 25 years their populations have declined by over 85%, largely due to a chytridiomycosis outbreak that nearly wiped out the Montserratian population. Within the context of developing tools that can aid in the conservation of the mountain chicken frog, we assembled its complete mitochondrial genome, contributing the first complete mitogenome of the genus Leptodactylus (Genbank Accession number MW260634). The circular genome is 18,669 bp long and contains 37 genes. A phylogenetic analysis reveals that L. fallax forms a clade with Leptodactylus melanonotus, highlighting the close relationship of Leptodactylus spp. relative to other species from the superfamily Hyloidea included in the analysis.
Highlights
The mountain chicken frog (Leptodactylus fallax Mu€ller, 1926), endemic to the Lesser Antilles, is one of 83 species in the genus Leptodactylus (Frost 2021)
Genetic records from wild populations allow benchmarks to be set for conservation breeding programmes of L. fallax, which could be vulnerable to the loss of genetic diversity in captivity (Lynch and O’Hely 2001)
Only one, partial mitogenome from the genus Leptodactylus has been described from Leptodactylus melanonotus (Zhang et al 2013)
Summary
The mountain chicken frog (Leptodactylus fallax Mu€ller, 1926), endemic to the Lesser Antilles, is one of 83 species in the genus Leptodactylus (Frost 2021). As a giant frog with a large appetite, L. fallax plays an important ecological role as a native apex predator in its remaining home range on Montserrat and Dominica (Daltry 2002). Leptodactylus fallax is critically endangered, largely due to the recent incursion of the infectious disease chytridiomycosis (Hudson et al 2016). There are thought to be fewer than 100 wild individuals remaining (author’s unpublished observations), so it is important to document genetic features of the species, such as its mitochondrial genome.
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