A new reproductive mode in anurans: Natural history of Bokermannohyla astartea (Anura: Hylidae) with the description of its tadpole and vocal repertoire

Anurans have the greatest diversity of reproductive modes among tetrapod vertebrates, with at least 41 being currently recognized. We describe a new reproductive mode for anurans, as exhibited by the Paranapiacaba Treefrog, Bokermannohyla astartea, an endemic and poorly known species of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest belonging to the B. circumdata group. We also describe other aspects of its reproductive biology, that are relevant to understanding the new reproductive mode, such as courtship behavior, spawning, and tadpoles. Additionally, we redescribe its advertisement call and extend its vocal repertoire by describing three additional call types: courtship, amplectant, and presumed territorial. The new reproductive mode exhibited by B. astartea consists of: (1) deposition of aquatic eggs in leaf-tanks of terrestrial or epiphytic bromeliads located on or over the banks of temporary or permanent streams; (2) exotrophic tadpoles remain in the leaf-tanks during initial stages of development (until Gosner stage 26), after which they presumably jump or are transported to streams after heavy rains that flood their bromeliad tanks; and (3) tadpole development completes in streams. The tadpoles of B. astartea are similar to those of other species of the B. circumdata group, although with differences in the spiracle, eyes, and oral disc. The vocal repertoire of B. astartea exhibits previously unreported acoustic complexity for the genus. Bokermannohyla astartea is the only bromeligenous species known to date among the 187 known species within the tribe Cophomantini. We further discuss evolutionary hypotheses for the origin of this novel reproductive mode.Fil: Malagoli, Leo Ramos. Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho; BrasilFil: Leite Pezzuti, Tiago. Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais; BrasilFil: Lee Bang, Davi. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Faivovich, Julián. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia"; ArgentinaFil: Lyra, Mariana Lúcio. Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho; BrasilFil: Ribeiro Giovanelli, João Gabriel. Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho; BrasilFil: de Anchietta Garcia, Paulo Christiano. Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais; BrasilFil: Sawaya, Ricardo Jannini. Universidad Federal do Abc; BrasilFil: Baptista Haddad, Célio Fernando. Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho; Brasi

The Mitochondrial Genome of the Leaf-Cutter Ant Atta laevigata: A Mitogenome with a Large Number of Intergenic Spacers

In this paper we describe the nearly complete mitochondrial genome of the leaf-cutter ant Atta laevigata, assembled using transcriptomic libraries from Sanger and Illumina next generation sequencing (NGS), and PCR products. This mitogenome was found to be very large (18,729 bp), given the presence of 30 non-coding intergenic spacers (IGS) spanning 3,808 bp. A portion of the putative control region remained unsequenced. The gene content and organization correspond to that inferred for the ancestral pancrustacea, except for two tRNA gene rearrangements that have been described previously in other ants. The IGS were highly variable in length and dispersed through the mitogenome. This pattern was also found for the other hymenopterans in particular for the monophyletic Apocrita. These spacers with unknown function may be valuable for characterizing genome evolution and distinguishing closely related species and individuals. NGS provided better coverage than Sanger sequencing, especially for tRNA and ribosomal subunit genes, thus facilitating efforts to fill in sequence gaps. The results obtained showed that data from transcriptomic libraries contain valuable information for assembling mitogenomes. The present data also provide a source of molecular markers that will be very important for improving our understanding of genomic evolutionary processes and phylogenetic relationships among hymenopterans

The Mitochondrial Genome of the Leaf-Cutter Ant <i>Atta laevigata</i>: A Mitogenome with a Large Number of Intergenic Spacers

<div><p>In this paper we describe the nearly complete mitochondrial genome of the leaf-cutter ant <i>Atta laevigata</i>, assembled using transcriptomic libraries from Sanger and Illumina next generation sequencing (NGS), and PCR products. This mitogenome was found to be very large (18,729 bp), given the presence of 30 non-coding intergenic spacers (IGS) spanning 3,808 bp. A portion of the putative control region remained unsequenced. The gene content and organization correspond to that inferred for the ancestral pancrustacea, except for two tRNA gene rearrangements that have been described previously in other ants. The IGS were highly variable in length and dispersed through the mitogenome. This pattern was also found for the other hymenopterans in particular for the monophyletic Apocrita. These spacers with unknown function may be valuable for characterizing genome evolution and distinguishing closely related species and individuals. NGS provided better coverage than Sanger sequencing, especially for tRNA and ribosomal subunit genes, thus facilitating efforts to fill in sequence gaps. The results obtained showed that data from transcriptomic libraries contain valuable information for assembling mitogenomes. The present data also provide a source of molecular markers that will be very important for improving our understanding of genomic evolutionary processes and phylogenetic relationships among hymenopterans.</p></div

Development Of Polymorphic Microsatellite Markers For The Human Botfly, Dermatobia Hominis (diptera: Oestridae).

In this report, we describe the development of 17 polymorphic microsatellite markers for the human botfly, Dermatobia hominis, an obligatory parasite of mammals of great veterinary importance in Latin America. The number of alleles ranged from 5 to 21 per locus, with a mean of 12.2 alleles per locus. The expected heterozygosity ranged from 0.2571 to 0.9206 and from 0.2984 to 0.9291 in two populations from Brazil. These markers should provide a high resolution tool for assessment of the fine-scale genetic structure of natural populations of the human botfly.9409-1

Organization of the <i>A. laevigata</i> mitogenome compared with those of the ancestor and other ants.

<p>All protein and rRNA-coding genes are in the same direction and position found in other Hymenoptera and hypothetical pancrustacean ancestral sequences. Genes encoded by the N strand are underlined; the remaining genes are encoded by the J strand. The control region of <i>A. laevigata</i> (gray) is incomplete. Shaded genes in pancrustacean ancestral sequence indicate rearrangements and arrows indicate position shifts of tRNA genes compared to it. Black arrow: <i>trnV</i> translocation from the <i>lrRNA-srRNA</i> junction to the <i>srRNA-ND2</i> junction; grey arrow: <i>trnI-trnQ-trnM</i> became <i>trnM-trnI-trnQ</i>; blue arrow: <i>trnK</i> and <i>trnD</i> swapped positions; red arrow: <i>trnN</i> translocation from the <i>trnA-trnR-trnN-trnS₁-trnE-trnF</i> cluster to a position upstream of <i>srRNA</i>, with an inversion. This figure was adapted from Gotzek et al. <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0097117#pone.0097117-Gotzek1" target="_blank">[13]</a>.</p

Bayesian tree derived from mitogenomic analyses.

<p>Dataset included first and second codon positions from protein-coding genes and the rRNA genes. Posterior probabilities are indicated at each node. IGS: sum of intergenic spacers in base pairs. N = number of intergenic spacers.</p

Taxonomy, GenBank accession numbers, and mitogenome sizes of Hymenoptera mitochondrial genomes used for the phylogenetic analysis.

<p>*IGS bp: sum of intergenic spacers. N: number of intergenic regions in complete mitogenome (excluding A+T rich region).</p

Mitochondrial genome annotation and A+T content of <i>A. laevigata</i>.

<p>*The J strand is used as reference for position numbers. Parentheses indicate genes encoded by the N strand.</p>#<p>Non-coding intergenic spacer between two adjacent genes. Negative numbers indicate the overlap size in base pairs.</p>+<p>Incomplete sequence.</p

Reassessment of the taxonomic status of Pseudopaludicola parnaiba (Anura, Leptodactylidae, Leiuperinae), with the description of a new cryptic species from the Brazilian Cerrado

The Neotropical frog genus Pseudopaludicola includes 25 species distributed throughout South America. Herein we review the taxonomic status of P. parnaiba relative to P. canga and the specific identity of the population treated in previous studies as Pseudopaludicola sp. 3 from Barreirinhas in the Brazilian state of Maranhão. The lack of differentiation in advertisement call, morphology, and mitochondrial markers from topotypes and different populations rejects the status of P. parnaiba and Pseudopaludicola sp. 3 from Barreirinhas as distinct species. For these reasons, we suggest to formally consider P. parnaiba as a junior synonym of P. canga. We also found that a population previously reported as P. facureae from central Brazil (Palmeiras de Goiás, Goiás) corresponds to a cryptic species that we describe here as a new species. Lastly, we provide for the first time the phylogenetic positions of P. giarettai, P. llanera and P. pusilla