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Fouquet A, Kok PJR, Recoder RS, Prates I, Camacho A, Marques-Souza S, Ghellere JM, McDiarmid RW, Rodrigues MT. Relicts in the mist: Two new frog families, genera and species highlight the role of Pantepui as a biodiversity museum throughout the Cenozoic. Mol Phylogenet Evol 2024; 191:107971. [PMID: 38000706 DOI: 10.1016/j.ympev.2023.107971] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/10/2023] [Revised: 11/21/2023] [Accepted: 11/21/2023] [Indexed: 11/26/2023]
Abstract
The iconic mountains of the Pantepui biogeographical region host many early-diverging endemic animal and plant lineages, concurring with Conan Doyle's novel about an ancient "Lost World". While this is the case of several frog lineages, others appear to have more recent origins, adding to the controversy around the diversification processes in this region. Due to its remoteness, Pantepui is challenging for biological surveys, and only a glimpse of its biodiversity has been described, which hampers comprehensive evolutionary studies in many groups. During a recent expedition to the Neblina massif on the Brazil-Venezuela border, we sampled two new frog species that could not be assigned to any known genus. Here, we perform phylogenetic analyses of mitogenomic and nuclear loci to infer the evolutionary relationships of the new taxa and support their description. We find that both species represent single lineages deeply nested within Brachycephaloidea, a major Neotropical clade of direct-developing frogs. Both species diverged >45 Ma from their closest relatives: the first is sister to all other Brachycephaloidea except for Ceuthomantis, another Pantepui endemic, and the second is sister to Brachycephalidae, endemic to the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. In addition to these considerable phylogenetic and biogeographic divergences, external morphology and osteological features support the proposition of two new family and genus-level taxa to accommodate these new branches of the amphibian tree of life. These findings add to other recently described ancient vertebrate lineages from the Neblina massif, providing a bewildering reminder that our perception of the Pantepui's biodiversity remains vastly incomplete. It also provides insights into how these mountains acted as "museums" during the diversification of Brachycephaloidea and of Neotropical biotas more broadly, in line with the influential "Plateau theory". Finally, these discoveries point at the yet unknown branches of the tree of life that may go extinct, due to global climate change and zoonotic diseases, before we even learn about their existence, amphibians living at higher elevations being particularly at risk.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antoine Fouquet
- Laboratoire Évolution et Diversité Biologique, UMR 5174, CNRS, IRD, Université Paul Sabatier, Bâtiment 4R1 31062 cedex 9, 118 Route de Narbonne, 31077 Toulouse, France.
| | - Philippe J R Kok
- Department of Ecology and Vertebrate Zoology, Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Łódź, 12/16 Banacha Str., Łódź 90-237, Poland; Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom.
| | - Renato Sousa Recoder
- Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto de Biociências, Departamento de Zoologia, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
| | - Ivan Prates
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
| | - Agustin Camacho
- Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto de Biociências, Departamento de Zoologia, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
| | - Sergio Marques-Souza
- Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto de Biociências, Departamento de Zoologia, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
| | - José Mario Ghellere
- Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto de Biociências, Departamento de Zoologia, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
| | - Roy W McDiarmid
- Department of Vertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, PO Box 37012, Washington, DC 20013, USA
| | - Miguel Trefaut Rodrigues
- Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto de Biociências, Departamento de Zoologia, São Paulo, SP, Brazil
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Arroyo S, Targino M, Rueda-Solano LA, Daza JM, Grant T. A new genus of terraranas (Anura: Brachycephaloidea) from northern South America, with a systematic review of Tachiramantis. SYST BIODIVERS 2022. [DOI: 10.1080/14772000.2022.2123865] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/24/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Sandy Arroyo
- Laboratorio de Anfibios, Grupo Cladística Profunda y Biogeografía Histórica, Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia
| | - Mariane Targino
- Laboratório de Anfíbios, Departamento de Zoologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
- Departamento de Vertebrados, Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
| | - Luis Alberto Rueda-Solano
- Grupo de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Ecología Aplicada (GIBEA), Facultad de Ciencias Básicas, Universidad del Magdalena, Santa Marta, Colombia
| | - Juan M. Daza
- Grupo Herpetológico de Antioquia, Instituto de Biología, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia
| | - Taran Grant
- Laboratório de Anfíbios, Departamento de Zoologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
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Barrientos LS, Streicher JW, Miller EC, Pie MR, Wiens JJ, Crawford AJ. Phylogeny of terraranan frogs based on 2,665 loci and impacts of missing data on phylogenomic analyses. SYST BIODIVERS 2021. [DOI: 10.1080/14772000.2021.1933249] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Lucas S. Barrientos
- Department of Biological Sciences, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, 111711, Colombia
| | - Jeffrey W. Streicher
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721-0088, AZ, USA
- Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, South Kensington, London, SW7 5BD, England, UK
| | - Elizabeth C. Miller
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721-0088, AZ, USA
- School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, 98195-5020, WA, USA
| | - Marcio R. Pie
- Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, 81531-980, Paraná, Brazil
| | - John J. Wiens
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721-0088, AZ, USA
| | - Andrew J. Crawford
- Department of Biological Sciences, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, 111711, Colombia
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