Abstract
While comparatively few amphibian species have been described on the North East Asian mainland in the last decades, several species have been the subject of taxonomical debates in relation to the Yellow sea. Here, we sampled Dryophytes sp. treefrogs from the Republic of Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the People's Republic of China to clarify the status of this clade around the Yellow sea and determine the impact of sea level change on treefrogs' phylogenetic relationships. Based on genetics, call properties, adult morphology, tadpole morphology and niche modelling, we determined the segregated status species of D. suweonensis and D. immaculatus. We then proceeded to describe a new treefrog species, D. flaviventris sp. nov., from the central lowlands of the Republic of Korea. The new species is geographically segregated from D. suweonensis by the Chilgap mountain range and known to occur only in the area of Buyeo, Nonsan and Iksan in the Republic of Korea. While the Yellow sea is the principal element to the current isolation of the three clades, the paleorivers of the Yellow sea basin are likely to have been the major factor for the divergences within this clade. We recommend conducting rapid conservation assessments as these species are present on very narrow and declining ranges.
Highlights
Sea level fluctuations in relation to climatic oscillations have consecutively isolated and connected populations [1,2,3]
Call properties and morphological differences between clades were not known before this study, and individual sampled in China were assigned to D. immaculatus, based on range, and individuals sampled in R Korea and DPR Korea were assigned to either D. suweonensis or the new clade based on the genetic analyses
The results showed that each of the three clades had a distinctive genetic structure compared to the other, seen through the phylogenetic tree (Fig 3) and the STRUCTURE plots (Fig 2)Fig. Based on the records of the TimeTree database [86], we estimated the divergence between D. japonicus and the D. suweonensis group c. 13.67 mya
Summary
Sea level fluctuations in relation to climatic oscillations have consecutively isolated and connected populations [1,2,3]. Hylid treefrogs isolated on peninsulas in the Mediterranean sea diverged as a result of sea level variations in conjunction with ice ages [6, 7], while other species such as green toads (Bufo viridis subgroup) show widespread hybridisation in contact zones [8]. Despite being one the of the largest seas in the world, the Yellow sea is a comparatively shallow water body [11] resulting from the submergence of the continental shelve [11]. Most landscapes were free of ice during the quaternary ([2]; Qiu et al, 2011) and the LGM [31, 32], allowing population movements
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