A review of the Madagascan snake genera Pseudoxyrhopus, Pararhadinaea, and Heteroliodon (Squamata: Colubridae)

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/56426/1/MP182.pd

Systematic revision of the genus Paroedura Gnther (Reptilia: Squamata: Gekkonidae), with the description of five new species

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/56432/1/MP189.pd

A new species of Mabuya Fitzinger (Squamata: Scincidae: Lygosominae) from northern Madagascar

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57164/1/OP728.pd

Observations and re-description of Zonosaurus boettgeri Steindachner 1891 and description of a second new species of long-tailed Zonosaurus from western Madagascar

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57175/1/OP739.pd

A rainforest survey of amphibians, reptiles and small mammals at Montagne d'Ambre, Madagascar

The Montagne d'Ambre mountain range in northern Madagascar was surveyed for amphibians, reptiles, and small mammals. The rainforest of this region is geographically isolated from the continuous rainforest belt of northern and eastern Madagascar. A total of 24 amphibian, 46 reptile, and 12 mammal species was recorded over two months, by direct sampling and pitfall trapping. Despite previous collecting in this region for more than 100 years, 56% of the species found were new records for Montagne d'Ambre. Possibly seven (three amphibians, three reptiles, one small mammal) of the species recorded are undescribed, and nine are probably endemic to Montagne d'Ambre. The endemic species are Plethodontohyla sp. nov. 2 and 3, Brookesia sp. nov. 1 and 2, Paracontias brocchii, Zonosaurus haroldmeieri, Liopholidophis sp. nov., Pseudoxyrhopus ambreensis, and Microgale parvula. Published amphibian and reptile species lists for Montagne d'Ambre contained 26-40% errors, which is probably typical for most sites in Madagascar, and cautions against using such sources of data indiscriminately.The vast majority of species (83%) were found only in primary forest, and the majority (70%) had restricted altitudinal ranges, either occurring above or below 900 m elevation. The presence of low-altitude specialists at Montagne d'Ambre clearly demonstrates the need to conserve the lower altitude peripheral forests which are most vulnerable to encroachment and degradation.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/31871/1/0000821.pd

In situ adaptation and ecological release facilitate the occupied niche expansion of a non-native Madagascan day gecko in Florida

Aim: To investigate whether the frequently advocated climate-matching species distribution modeling approach could predict the well-characterized colonization of Florida by the Madagascar giant day gecko Phelsuma grandis. Location: Madagascar and Florida, USA. Methods: To determine the climatic conditions associated with the native range of P. grandis, we used native-range presence-only records and Bioclim climatic data to build a Maxent species distribution model and projected the climatic thresholds of the native range onto Florida. We then built an analogous model using Florida presence-only data and projected it onto Madagascar. We constructed a third model using native-range presences for both P. grandis and the closely related parapatric species P. kochi. Results: Despite performing well within the native range, our Madagascar Bioclim model failed to identify suitable climatic habitat currently occupied by P. grandis in Florida. The model constructed using Florida presences also failed to reflect the distribution in Madagascar by overpredicting distribution, especially in western areas occupied by P. kochi. The model built using the combined P. kochi/P. grandis dataset modestly improved the prediction of the range of P. grandis in Florida, thereby implying competitive exclusion of P. grandis by P. kochi from habitat within the former\u27s fundamental niche. These findings thus suggest ecological release of P. grandis in Florida. However, because ecological release cannot fully explain the divergent occupied niches of P. grandis in Madagascar versus Florida, our findings also demonstrate some degree of in situ adaptation in Florida. Main conclusions: Our models suggest that the discrepancy between the predicted and observed range of P. grandis in Florida is attributable to either in situ adaptation by P. grandis within Florida, or a combination of such in situ adaptation and competition with P. kochi in Madagascar. Our study demonstrates that climate-matching species distribution models can severely underpredict the establishment risk posed by non-native herpetofauna

Hominoid intraspecific cranial variation mirrors neutral genetic diversity

Natural selection, developmental constraint, and plasticity have all been invoked as explanations for intraspecific cranial variation in humans and apes. However, global patterns of human cranial variation are congruent with patterns of genetic variation, demonstrating that population history has influenced cranial variation in humans. Here we show that this finding is not unique to Homo sapiens but is also broadly evident across extant ape species. Specifically, taxa that exhibit greater intraspecific cranial shape variation also exhibit greater genetic diversity at neutral autosomal loci. Thus, cranial shape variation within hominoid taxa reflects the population history of each species. Our results suggest that neutral evolutionary processes such as mutation, gene flow, and genetic drift have played an important role in generating cranial variation within species. These findings are consistent with previous work on human cranial morphology and improve our understanding of the evolutionary processes that generate intraspecific cranial shape diversity within hominoids. This work has implications for the analysis of selective and developmental pressures on the cranium and for interpreting shape variation in fossil hominin crania

Predicting distributions of known and unknown reptile species in Madagascar

Despite the importance of tropical biodiversity(1), informative species distributional data are seldom available for biogeographical study or setting conservation priorities(2,3). Modelling ecological niche distributions of species offers a potential soluion(4-7); however, the utility of old locality data from museums, and of more recent remotely sensed satellite data, remains poorly explored, especially for rapidly changing tropical landscapes. Using 29 modern data sets of environmental land coverage and 621 chameleon occurrence localities from Madagascar ( historical and recent), here we demonstrate a significant ability of our niche models in predicting species distribution. At 11 recently inventoried sites, highest predictive success (85.1%) was obtained for models based only on modern occurrence data (74.7% and 82.8% predictive success, respectively, for pre-1978 and all data combined). Notably, these models also identified three intersecting areas of over-prediction that recently yielded seven chameleon species new to science. We conclude that ecological niche modelling using recent locality records and readily available environmental coverage data provides informative biogeographical data for poorly known tropical landscapes, and offers innovative potential for the discovery of unknown distributional areas and unknown species.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62843/1/nature02205.pd

Comparing species tree estimation with large anchored phylogenomic and small Sanger-sequenced molecular datasets: an empirical study on Malagasy pseudoxyrhophiine snakes

Background Using molecular data generated by high throughput next generation sequencing (NGS) platforms to infer phylogeny is becoming common as costs go down and the ability to capture loci from across the genome goes up. While there is a general consensus that greater numbers of independent loci should result in more robust phylogenetic estimates, few studies have compared phylogenies resulting from smaller datasets for commonly used genetic markers with the large datasets captured using NGS. Here, we determine how a 5-locus Sanger dataset compares with a 377-locus anchored genomics dataset for understanding the evolutionary history of the pseudoxyrhophiine snake radiation centered in Madagascar. The Pseudoxyrhophiinae comprise ~86 % of Madagascar’s serpent diversity, yet they are poorly known with respect to ecology, behavior, and systematics. Using the 377-locus NGS dataset and the summary statistics species-tree methods STAR and MP-EST, we estimated a well-supported species tree that provides new insights concerning intergeneric relationships for the pseudoxyrhophiines. We also compared how these and other methods performed with respect to estimating tree topology using datasets with varying numbers of loci. Methods Using Sanger sequencing and an anchored phylogenomics approach, we sequenced datasets comprised of 5 and 377 loci, respectively, for 23 pseudoxyrhophiine taxa. For each dataset, we estimated phylogenies using both gene-tree (concatenation) and species-tree (STAR, MP-EST) approaches. We determined the similarity of resulting tree topologies from the different datasets using Robinson-Foulds distances. In addition, we examined how subsets of these data performed compared to the complete Sanger and anchored datasets for phylogenetic accuracy using the same tree inference methodologies, as well as the program *BEAST to determine if a full coalescent model for species tree estimation could generate robust results with fewer loci compared to the summary statistics species tree approaches. We also examined the individual gene trees in comparison to the 377-locus species tree using the program MetaTree. Results Using the full anchored dataset under a variety of methods gave us the same, well-supported phylogeny for pseudoxyrhophiines. The African pseudoxyrhophiine Duberria is the sister taxon to the Malagasy pseudoxyrhophiines genera, providing evidence for a monophyletic radiation in Madagascar. In addition, within Madagascar, the two major clades inferred correspond largely to the aglyphous and opisthoglyphous genera, suggesting that feeding specializations associated with tooth venom delivery may have played a major role in the early diversification of this radiation. The comparison of tree topologies from the concatenated and species-tree methods using different datasets indicated the 5-locus dataset cannot beused to infer a correct phylogeny for the pseudoxyrhophiines under any method tested here and that summary statistics methods require 50 or more loci to consistently recover the species-tree inferred using the complete anchored dataset. However, as few as 15 loci may infer the correct topology when using the full coalescent species tree method *BEAST. MetaTree analyses of each gene tree from the Sanger and anchored datasets found that none of the individual gene trees matched the 377-locus species tree, and that no gene trees were identical with respect to topology. Conclusions Our results suggest that ≥50 loci may be necessary to confidently infer phylogenies when using summaryspecies-tree methods, but that the coalescent-based method *BEAST consistently recovers the same topology using only 15 loci. These results reinforce that datasets with small numbers of markers may result in misleading topologies, and further, that the method of inference used to generate a phylogeny also has a major influence on the number of loci necessary to infer robust species trees. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12862-015-0503-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Extending the known distribution of Nicosia’s chameleon, Furcifer nicosiai Jesu, Mattioli & Schimmenti, 1999 (Squamata: Chamaeleonidae)

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio