Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Type: Article
Published: 2019-05-24
Page range: 469–484
Abstract views: 171
PDF downloaded: 11

Two new species of treefrog (Pelodrydidae: Litoria) from southern New Guinea elucidated by DNA barcoding

Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, 170 Kessels Rd, Brisbane, Queensland 4121, and Biodiversity and Geosciences Program, Queensland Museum, South Brisbane, Queensland, 4101 Australia
South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5000 Australia
South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5000 Australia
Amphibia Frog diversity genetic diversity Papua New Guinea parachuting rostral projection species complex

Abstract

New Guinea is home to the world’s most diverse insular frog biota, but only a small number of taxa have been included in genetically informed assessments of species diversity. Here we describe two new species of New Guinea treefrog in the genus Litoria that were first flagged during assessments of genetic diversity (DNA barcoding) and are currently only known from the holotypes. Litoria pterodactyla sp. nov. is a large green species in the Litoria graminea species complex from hill forests in Western Province, Papua New Guinea and is the third member of this group known from south of the Central Cordillera. Litoria vivissimia sp. nov. is a small, spike-nosed species from mid-montane forests on the Central Cordillera. It is morphologically very similar to Litoria pronimia, but occurs nearly 1000 m higher than any known locality for that species. More extensive genetically informed assessment of diversity in New Guinea frogs seems certain to reveal many more as-yet-unrecognised taxa in complexes of morphologically similar species.

 

References

  1. AmphibiaWeb (2018) AmphibiaWeb. 2019. University of California, Berkeley, CA. Available from: https://amphibiaweb.org (accessed 13 August 2018)

    Bower, D.S., Lips, K.R., Schwarzkopf, L., Georges, A. & Clulow, S. (2017) Devastating Fungal Diseases. Science, 357, 454–456.

    https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao0500

    Dahl, C., Kiatik, I., Baisen, I., Bronikowski, E., Fleischer, R.C., Rotzel, N.C., Lock, J., Novotny, V., Narayan, E. & Hero, J.M. (2012) Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis not found in rainforest frogs along an altitudinal gradient of Papua New Guinea. Herpetological Journal, 22, 183–186.

    Duellman, W.E. (1999) Global Distribution of Amphibians: Patterns, Conservation, and Future Challenges. In: Patterns of Distribution of Amphibians. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pp. 1–30.

    Edgar, R.C. (2004) MUSCLE User Guide. Nucleic Acids Research, 32, 1–15.

    Fagan-Jeffries, E.P., Cooper, S.J.B., Bertozzi, T., Bradford, T.M. & Austin, A.D. (2018) DNA barcoding of microgastrine parasitoid wasps (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) using high-throughput methods more than doubles the number of species known for Australia. Molecular Ecology Resources, 18, 1132–1143.

    https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.12904

    Fischman, D., Stuart, S.N., Chanson, J.S., Cox, N.A., Young, B.E., Rodrigues, A.S.L., Debra, L., Waller, R.W., Unit, I.C.B.A. & Street, M. (2005) Status and Trends of Amphibian Declines and Extinctions Worldwide. Science, 306, 1783–1787.

    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, 2, e1109.

    Günther, R. (2008) Two new hylid frogs (Anura: Hylidae: Litoria ) from western New Guinea. Vertebrate Zoology, 58, 83–92.

    Hebert, P.D.N., Penton, E.H., Burns, J.M., Janzen, D.H. & Hallwachs, W. (2004) Ten species in one: DNA barcoding reveals cryptic species in the neotropical skipper butterfly Astraptes fulgerator. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101, 14812–7.

    https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0406166101

    Hero, J.M., Williams, S.E. & Magnusson, W.E. (2005) Ecological traits of declining amphibians in upland areas of eastern Australia. Journal of Zoology, 267, 221–232.

    https://doi.org/10.1017/S0952836905007296

    Highton, R. (1995) Speciation in Eastern North American Salamanders of the Genus Plethodon. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 26, 579–600.

    https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.es.26.110195.003051

    Iannella, A., Oliver, P. & Richards, S. (2015) Two new species of Choerophryne (Anura, Microhylidae) from the northern versant of Papua New Guinea’s central cordillera. Zootaxa, 4058 (3), 332–340.

    https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4058.3.2

    Iannella, A., Richards, S. & Oliver, P. (2014) A new species of Choerophryne (Anura, Microhylidae) from the central cordillera of Papua New Guinea. Zootaxa, 3753 (5), 483–93.

    https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3754.5.6

    Kearse, M., Moir, R., Wilson, A., Stones-Havas, S., Cheung, M., Sturrock, S., Buxton, S., Cooper, A., Markowitz, S., Duran, C., Thierer, T., Ashton, B., Mentjies, P. & Drummond, A. (2012) Geneious Basic: an integrated and extendable desktop software platform for the organization and analysis of sequence data. Bioinformatics, 28, 1647–1649.

    https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/bts199

    Kraus, F. (2018) Taxonomy of Litoria graminea (Anura: Hylidae), with descriptions of two closely related new species. Zootaxa, 4457 (2), 264–284.

    https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4457.2.3

    Meegaskumbura, M., Bossuyt, F., Pethiyagoda, R., Manamendra-Arachchi, K., Bahir, M., Milinkovitch, M.C. & Schneider, C.J. (2002) Sri Lanka: an amphibian hot spot. Science, 298, 379.

    https://doi.org/10.1126/science.298.5592.379

    Meiri, S., Bauer, A.M., Allison, A., Castro-Herrera, F., Chirio, L., Colli, G., Das, I., Doan, T.M., Glaw, F., Grismer, L.L., Hoogmoed, M., Kraus, F., LeBreton, M., Meirte, D., Nagy, Z.T., Nogueira, C.D.C., Oliver, P., Pauwels, O.S.G., Pincheira-Donoso, D., Shea, G., Sindaco, R., Tallowin, O.J.S., Torres-Carvajal, O., Trape, J.-F., Uetz, P., Wagner, P., Wang, Y., Ziegler, T. & Roll, U. (2018) Extinct, obscure or imaginary: The lizard species with the smallest ranges. Diversity and Distributions, 24, 262–273.

    https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12678

    Menzies, J. (1993) Systematics of Litoria iris (Anura, Hylidae) and its allies in New-Guinea and a note on sexual dimorphism in the group. Australian Journal of Zoology, 41, 225–255.

    https://doi.org/10.1071/ZO9930225

    Nielsen, S.V. & Oliver, P.M. (2017) Morphological and genetic evidence for a new karst specialist lizard from New Guinea (Cyrtodactylus: Gekkonidae). Royal Society Open Science, 4, 170781.

    https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.170781

    Oliver, L.A., Rittmeyer, E.N., Kraus, F., Richards, S.J. & Austin, C.C. (2013) Phylogeny and phylogeography of Mantophryne (Anura: Microhylidae) reveals cryptic diversity in New Guinea. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 67, 600–607.

    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2013.02.023

    Oliver, P., Keogh, J.S. & Moritz, C. (2015) New approaches to cataloguing and understanding evolutionary diversity: A perspective from Australian herpetology. Australian Journal of Zoology, 62, 417–430.

    https://doi.org/10.1071/ZO14091

    Oliver, P., Richards, S. & Tjaturadi, B. (2012) Two new species of Callulops (Anura: Microhylidae) from montane forests in New Guinea. Zootaxa, 3178, 33–44.

    Oliver, P.M., Adams, M., Lee, M.S.Y., Hutchinson, M.N. & Doughty, P. (2009) Cryptic diversity in vertebrates: molecular data double estimates of species diversity in a radiation of Australian lizards (Diplodactylus, Gekkota). Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 276, 2001–2007.

    https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.1881

    Oliver, P.M., Gunther, R., Mumpuni & Richards, S.J. (2019) Systematics of New Guinea treefrogs (Litoria: Pelodryadidae) with erectile rostral spikes: an extended description of Litoria pronimia and a new species from the Foja Mountains. Zootaxa, 4604, 335–348.

    Oliver, P.M., Iannella, A., Richards, S.J. & Lee, M.S.Y. (2017) Mountain colonisation, miniaturisation and ecological evolution in a radiation of direct-developing New Guinea Frogs (Choerophryne , Microhylidae). PeerJ, 5, e3077.

    https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3077

    Padial, J.M., Miralles, A., De la Riva, I. & Vences, M. (2010) The integrative future of taxonomy. Frontiers in Zoology, 7, 16.

    https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-9994-7-16

    De Queiroz, K. (2007) Species concepts and species delimitation. Systematic biology, 56, 879–886.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/10635150701701083

    Richards, S.J. & Armstrong, K.N. (2017) Frogs. In: Richards, S.J. (Ed.), Biodiversity Assessment of the PNG LNG Upstream Project Area, Southern Highlands and Hela Province, Papua New Guinea. ExxonMobil PNG Limited, Port Moresby, pp. 53–81.

    Richards, S.J., Oliver, P., Dahl, C. & Tjaturadi, B. (2006) A new species of large green treefrog (Anura: Hylidae: Litoria) from northern New Guinea. Zootaxa, 1208, 57–68.

    Richards, S.J. & Oliver, P.M. (2006) Two new species of large green canopy-dwelling frogs (Anura: Hylidae: Litoria) from Papua New Guinea. Zootaxa, 60, 41–60.

    Richards, S.J. & Oliver, P.M. (2010) A New Scansorial Species of Cophixalus (Anura: Microhylidae) from the Kikori River Basin, Papua New Guinea. Journal of Herpetology, 44, 555–562.

    https://doi.org/10.1670/09-044.1

    Rowley, J.J.L., Tran, D.T.A., Frankham, G.J., Dekker, A.H. & Duong, T. (2015) Undiagnosed Cryptic Diversity in Small , Microendemic Frogs (Leptolalax) from the Central Highlands of Vietnam. PLoS ONE, 1–21.

    https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0128382

    Singhal, S., Hoskin, C.J., Couper, P., Potter, S. & Moritz, C. (2018) A Framework for Resolving Cryptic Species: A Case Study from the Lizards of the Australian Wet Tropics. Systematic Biology, 67, 1061–1075.

    https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syy026

    Stuart, B.L., Inger, R.F. & Voris, H.K. (2006) High level of cryptic species diversity revealed by sympatric lineages of Southeast Asian forest frogs. Biology Letters, 2, 470–474.

    https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2006.0505

    Tyler, M.J. (1968) Papuan Hylid Frogs of the Genus Hyla. Zoologische Verhandelingen, 96, 1–203.

    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 United States of America, 106, 8267–8272.

    https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0810821106

    Wilson, J.D., Hughes, J.M., Raven, R.J., Rix, M.G. & Schmidt, D.J. (2018) Spiny trapdoor spiders (Euoplos) of eastern Australia: Broadly sympatric clades are differentiated by burrow architecture and male morphology. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 122, 157–165.

    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2018.01.022