A revision of population designation and geographic distribution of the Lycian SalamanderMertensiella luschani(Steindachner, 1891)

A novel method to calculate climatic niche similarity among species with restricted ranges—the case of terrestrial Lycian salamanders

“…Rödder et al 2009a). Acknowledging published natural history properties of Lyciasalamandra (following Özeti and Atatür 1979;Klewen 1991;Steinfartz and Mutz 1998;Veith et al 2001;Gautier et al 2006;Tok et al 2009), we selected five bioclimatic variables as informative predictors for SDM building: 'mean temperature of the wettest quarter' (BIO8), 'mean temperature of the coldest quarter' (BIO11), 'annual precipitation' (BIO12), 'precipitation of the wettest quarter' (BIO16) and 'precipitation of the coldest quarter' (BIO19). These variables reflect those climatic conditions to which Lyciasalamandra species are exposed during their overground activity periods.…”

“…For all seven species of Lyciasalamandra, only 80 georeferenced presence records are available (Veith et al 2001;Johannesen et al 2006;Eleftherakos et al 2007;Beukema et al 2009;F. Pasmans and S. Bogaerts, personal communication;J.…”

“…With only one exception (L. helverseni), Lyciasalamandra populations are restricted to boulder fields at the foot of carstic limestone formations where the salamanders live partially underground (e.g. Steinfartz and Mutz 1998;Veith et al 2001;Veith and Steinfartz 2004). They are apparently 'trapped' in these localized habitats, which are usually surrounded by xeric landscapes lacking the extensive systems of crevices that are needed to escape from the overall xeric habitat conditions throughout major parts of the year (Weisrock et al 2001;Eleftherakos et al 2007).…”

A new subspecies of Lyciasalamandra flavimembris (Urodela: Salamandridae) from Muğla, southwestern Turkey

“…flavimembris was first described by Mutz and Steinfartz (1995) from approximately 6 km north of Marmaris as a subspecies of Mertensiella luschani. It was found to be different from other sister taxa of M. luschani in terms of the coloration of the dorsum, parotids, and eyelids (Mutz and Steinfartz, 1995;Veith et al, 2001;Öz et al, 2004). Through recent molecular studies (Veith and Steinfartz, 2004), all known taxa of M. luschani were transferred to another genus called Lyciasalamandra, and the flavimembris subspecies were assigned a species rank with 6 other subspecies of M. luschani.…”

“…According to Weisrock et al (2001) and Veith et al (2008), Lyciasalamandra subspecies originated from vicariant speciation as a result of almost simultaneous divergence from each other during the Late Miocene, approximately 6 to 8 million years ago, when the uplifting of Anatolia occurred in response to the northward movement of the Arabian plate. Six of these 7 species were endemic to Anatolia and distributed from an area between Marmaris (Muğla) and Alanya (Antalya) along the Mediterranean coast of Turkey and on some adjacent islands (Veith et al, 2001;Öz et al, 2004;Veith and Steinfartz, 2004;Franzen et al, 2008;Baran et al, 2012). Finally, in addition to the previously reported taxa, 3 new species (L. irfani, L. arikani, and L. yehudahi) were described from Muğla and Antalya through morphological and serological studies (Göçmen et al, 2011;Göçmen and Akman, 2012).…”