Diversity and biogeography of frogs in the genus Amnirana (Anura: Ranidae) across sub-Saharan Africa

Jongsma, Gregory F.M.; Barej, Michael F.; Barratt, Christopher D.; Burger, Marius; Conradie, Werner; Ernst, Raffael; Greenbaum, Eli; Hirschfeld, Mareike; Leaché, Adam D.; Penner, Johannes; Portik, Daniel M.; Zassi-Boulou, Ange-Ghislain; Rödel, Mark‐Oliver; Blackburn, David C.

doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2017.12.006

Cited by 33 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 97 publications

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“…This is a median-sized to large leaf-litter frog which was believed to range from forested West Africa into western East Africa. Very recently Jongsma et al (2018) showed that the Upper Guinea populations are a separate, undescribed species, which is the oldest lineage of the entire clade.…”

Section: Pyxicephalidaementioning

confidence: 99%

Herpetological surveys in two proposed protected areas in Liberia, West Africa

Rödel¹,

Glos²

2019

ZSE

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In March and April 2018 we surveyed amphibians and reptiles in two Proposed Protected Areas (PPAs) in Liberia. In the Krahn-Bassa Proposed Protected Area (KBPPA) in eastern Liberia 36 species of amphibians and 13 species of reptiles were recorded. In the Foya Proposed Protected Area (FPPA) in western Liberia 39 species of amphibians and 10 species of reptiles were recorded. The encountered herpetological communities in both sites were typical for West African rainforests. However, some species indicated disturbances, in particular at the edges of the study areas, the surrounding villages and plantations, and old artisanal gold mining sites within forests. Of particular conservation interest was the discovery of a high percentage of typical rainforest specialists with ranges restricted to the western part of the Upper Guinea rainforest biodiversity hotspot. Outstanding discoveries in KBPPA were two new species of puddle frogs, and the first country record for the arboreal, parachuting lizardHolaspisguentheri. Remarkable records in FPPA comprise a new species of stiletto snake, a new puddle frog and records of various frog species typically breeding in undisturbed rainforest streams, such asOdontobatrachusnatatorandConrauaalleni. Both study areas comprise an important proportion of the remaining rainforests in the Upper Guinea forest zone. The new discoveries indicate that within this biogeographic area, southeastern and western Liberian rainforest may still hold various undiscovered species and species of conservation concern. Further surveys in KBPPA and FPPA and nearby forests should clarify the distribution and conservation status of the new taxa.This study also emphasizes that the western part of the Liberian forests comprise at least partly a herpetofauna which differs from that of the East of the country. The recorded threatened amphibian species are all specialized on relatively undisturbed rainforests and they all have only small geographic ranges. The remaining parts of undisturbed or little disturbed forests thus have high importance for the long-term survival of these species. In conclusion the study areas have a high conservation potential and should be urgently protected from any further forest loss degradation and uncontrolled hunting.

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Section: Pyxicephalidaementioning

confidence: 99%

Herpetological surveys in two proposed protected areas in Liberia, West Africa

Rödel¹,

Glos²

2019

ZSE

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“…2000; Plana 2004); although the factors responsible for generating this diversity have been studied in detail through a phylogeographic lens for many species (e.g., Leaché and Fujita 2010; Jongsma et al. 2018; Leaché et al. 2017), comparative phylogeographic studies are lacking.…”

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Comparative phylogeography of West African amphibians and reptiles

et al. 2020

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Comparative phylogeographic studies often support shared divergence times for co‐distributed species with similar life histories and habitat specializations. During the late Holocene, West Africa experienced aridification and the turnover of rain forest habitats into savannas. These fragmented rain forests harbor impressive numbers of endemic and threatened species. In this setting, populations of co‐distributed rain forest species are expected to have diverged simultaneously, whereas divergence events for species adapted to savanna and forest‐edge habitats should be absent or idiosyncratic. We conducted a Bayesian analysis of shared evolutionary events to test models of population divergence for 20 species of anurans (frogs) and squamates (lizards and snakes) that are distributed across the Dahomey Gap, a climate change‐induced savanna barrier responsible for fragmenting previously contiguous rain forests of Ghana into two regions: the Togo‐Volta Hills and the Southwestern Forests. A model of asynchronous diversification is supported for anurans and squamates, suggesting that drivers of diversification are not specifically related to ecological and life history associations with habitat types. Instead, the wide variability of genetic divergence histories exhibited by these species suggests that biodiversity in this region has been shaped by diversification events that extend beyond the Holocene. Comparisons of the genealogical divergence index, a measure of the genetic divergence between populations due to the combined effects of genetic isolation and gene flow, illustrate that these populations represent a broad sampling of the speciation continuum.

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“…During the 2011 expedition to Lagoa Carumbo, a large white-lipped frog was morphologically assigned to the Amnirana lepus group (Branch and Conradie 2015). This assigment has been confirmed in a phylogeny of the genus (Jongsma et al 2018), and further studies are underway to address the taxonomical status of the Angolan population (Conradie pers. comm.).…”

Section: Recent Discoveries and Ongoing Studiesmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…Groups that remain not fully understood such as Phrynobatrachus (Zimkus et al 2010), Xenopus (Furman et al 2015) and Amnirana (Jongsma et al 2018), all have species widespread in Africa with type localities from Angola, and the resolution of their taxonomy depends on detailed studies in Angola.…”

Section: Species Complexes and Species With Unclear Boundariesmentioning

confidence: 99%