Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Responsive image
Issue: Vol. 2501 No. 1: 10 Jun. 2010
Type: Articles
Published: 2010-06-10
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.2501.1.2
Page range: 23–36
Abstract views: 75
PDF downloaded: 1

New species of reed frog from the Congo basin with discussion of paraphyly in Cinnamon-belly reed frogs

Trier University, Department of Biogeography, 54286 Trier, Germany
Copenhagen University, Department of Biology, Universitetsparken 15, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
Trier University, Department of Biogeography, 54286 Trier, Germany
National Museums of Kenya, Herpetology Section, PO Box 40658-00100, Nairobi, Kenya
University of the Western Cape, Zoology Department, Private Bag X17, Bellville 7535, South Africa
Trier University, Department of Biogeography, 54286 Trier, Germany
Amphibia Anura DNA barcoding Hyperoliidae Hyperolius cinnamomeoventris H. veithi sp. nov. paraphyly taxonomy

Abstract

We describe a new species of Afrotropical reed frog, genus Hyperolius (Hyperoliidae), from Salonga National Park in the central Congo basin, Democratic Republic of Congo. Males and females have similar colour and pattern and are easily distinguished from other taxa by a relatively short and broad, bright yellow (in life), dorsolateral line ending in the sacral region and the presence of a light spot on the heel. In a 16S mitochondrial rRNA phylogeny, it clusters with samples allocable to the Cinnamon-belly reed frog, H. cinnamomeoventris. The new species, along with other morphologically well distinguished taxa, splits H. cinnamomeoventris into different non-sister clades. We discuss paraphyly of this reed frog in a taxonomic framework.

References

  1. Ahl, E. (1924) Ueber einige afrikanische Frösche. Zoologischer Anzeiger, 59/60, 269–273.

    Benson, D.A., Karsch-Mitzrachi, I., Lippman, D.J., Ostell, J. & Wheeler, D.L. (2004) GenBank: update, Nucleic Acids Research, 32, 23–26.

    Channing, A. & Howell, K.M. (2006) Amphibians of East Africa. Chimaira: Frankfurt/Main; Cornell University Press: Ithaca, New York, 418 pp.

    Drewes, R. & Wilkinson, J. (2004) The California Academy of Sciences Gulf of Guinea expedition I: the taxonomic status of the genus Nesionixalus with comments on the genus Hyperolius. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, 55, 395–407.

    Edgar, R.C. (2004) MUSCLE: Multiple sequence alignment with high accuracy and high throughput, Nucleic Acids Research, 32, 1792–1797.

    Fouquet, A., Gilles, A., Vences, M., Marty, C, Blanc, M. & Gemmell, N.J. (2007) Underestimation of species richness in Neotropical frogs revealed by mtDNA analyses. PLoS ONE 2(10): e1109.

    Funk, D. J. & Omland, K.E. (2003) Species-level paraphyly and polyphyly: frequency, causes, and consequences, with insights from animal mitochondrial DNA. Annual Reviews in Evolution and Systematics, 34, 397–423.

    Frost, D.R. (2009) Amphibian Species of the World: an Online Reference. Version 5.3 (12 February, 2009). American Museum of Natural History. New York, USA. Available at: http://research.amnh.org/herpetology/amphibia/index.html (accessed 6 December 2009).

    Glaw, F. & Vences, M. (2007) A Field Guide to the Amphibians and Reptiles of Madagascar. Third Edition. Vences & Glaw, Köln, 496 pp.

    Heyer, W.R., Rand, A.S., da Cruz, C.A.G., Peixoto, O.L. & Nelson, C.E. (1990) Frogs of Boracéia. Arquivos de Zoología, 1, 237–410.

    Hijmans, R.J., Cameron, S.E., Parra, J.L., Jones, P.G. & Jarvis, A. (2005) Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. International Journal of Climatology, 25, 1965–1978.

    Huelsenbeck, J.P. & Ronquist, F. (2001) MRBAYES: Bayesian inference of phylogenetic trees. Bioinformatics, 17, 754–755.

    IUCN Standards and Petitions Working Group. (2008) Guidelines for using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria. Version 7.0. (August 2008). Standards and Petitions Working Groups of the IUCN SSC Biodiversity Assesment Sub-Committe. Available from http://intranet.iucn.org/webfiles/doc/SSC/RedList/RedListGuidelines.pd (accessed 15 June 2009).

    Kielgast, J., Rödder, D., Veith, M. & Lötters, S. (2010) Widespread occurrence of the amphibian chytrid fungus in Kenya. Animal Conservation, 13, 1–8.

    Laurent, R.F. (1941) Contributionà la systematique du genre Hyperolius Rapp. (batraciens). Revue de Zoologie et de Botanique africaines, 34, 149–167.

    Laurent, R.F. (1957) Genres Afrixalus et Hyperolius (Amphibia Salientia). Exploration du Parc national de l'Upemba, Mission G.F. de Witte Fasc., 42, 1–47.

    Lötters, S., Gossman, V., Obame, F. & Böhme, W. (2001) Zur Herpetofauna Gabuns. Teil I: Einleitung, Untersuchungsgebiet und Methodik, kommentierte Artenliste der gefundenen Froschlurche. Herpetofauna, 133, 19–34.

    Lötters, S., Schick, S., Scheelke, K., Teege, P., Kosuch, J., Rotich, D. & Veith, M. (2004) Bio-sketches and partitioning of sympatric reed frogs, genus Hyperolius (Amphibia; Hyperoliidae), in two humid tropical African forest regions. Journal of Natural History, 38, 1969–1997.

    McKay, B.D. & Zink, R.N. (2010) The causes of mitochondrial DNA gene tree paraphyly in birds. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 54, 647–650.

    Nylander, J.A.A. (2004) MrModeltest v2. Program distributed by the author. Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala.

    Palumbi, S.R. (1996) Nucleic acids II: The polymerase chain reaction. In: Hillis DM, Mable BK, Moritz C, eds. Molecular Systematics. 2nd ed., Sunderland, MA: Sinauer, 205–247.

    Palumbi, S.R., Martin, A., Romano, S., McMillan, W.O., Stice, L. & Grabowski, G. (1991) The simple fool's guide to PCR. University of Hawaii, Honolulu, 46 pp.

    Perret, J.-L. (1966) Les amphibiens du Cameroun. Zoologisches Jahrbuch für Systematik, 8, 289–464.

    Rödder, D., Kielgast, J., Bielby, J., Schmidtlein, S., Bosch, J., Garner, T.W.J., Veith, M., Walker, S., Fisher, M.C. Lötters, S. (2009) Global amphibian extinction risk assessment for the panzootic chytrid fungus. Diversity, 1, 52–66.

    Ronquist, F. & Huelsenbeck, J.P. (2003) MrBayes 3: Bayesian phylogenetic inference under mixed models. Bioinformatics, 19, 1572–1574.

    Schiøtz, A. (1999) Treefrogs of Africa. Chimaira: Frankfurt/Main: 350 pp.

    Schiøtz, A. (2006) Notes on the genus Hyperolius (Anura, Hyperoliidae) in central Republique Democratique du Congo. Alytes, 24, 40–60.

    Swofford, D.F.( 2001) PAUP*. Phylogenetic analysis using parsimony (*and other methods). Version 4.0.b.10. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts.

    Tamura, K., Dudley, J., Nei, M. & Kumar, S. (2007) MEGA4: Molecular evolutionary genetics analysis (MEGA) software version 4.0. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 24, 1596–1599.

    Veith, M., Kosuch J., Rödel, M.O., Hillers, A., Schmitz, A., Burger, M. & Lötters, S. (2009) Multiple evolution of sexual dichromatism in African reed frogs. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 51, 388–393.

    Vences, M., Thomas, M., van der Meijden, A., Chiari, A. & Vieites, D.R. (2005) Comparative performance of the 16S rRNA gene in DNA barcoding of amphibians. Frontiers in Zoology, 2, 5.

    Vieites, D.R., Wollenberg, K.C., Andreone, F., Köhler, J., Glaw, F. & Vences, M. (2009) Vast underestimation of Madagascar's biodiversity evidenced by an integrative amphibian inventory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A., 106, 8267–8272.

    Wilcox, T.P., Zwickl, D.J., Heath, T.A. & Hills, D.M. (2002) Phylogenetic relationships of the dwarf boas and a comparison of Bayesian and bootstrap measures of phylogenetic support. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 25, 361–371.

    Wollenberg, K.C., Lötters, S., Mora-Ferrer, C.A. & Veith, M. (2008) Disentangling composite colour and pattern ornaments. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 93, 433–444.

    Zimkus, B.M.& Schick, S (2010). Light at the end of the tunnel: insights into the molecular systematics of East African puddle frogs (Anura: Phrynobatrachidae). Systematics and Biodiversity, in press.