Genus-level phylogeny of snakes reveals the origins of species richness in Sri Lanka

Pyron, R. Alexander; Kandambi, H.K.D.; Hendry, Catriona R.; Pushpamal, Vishan; Burbrink, Frank T.; Somaweera, Ruchira

doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2012.12.004

Cited by 85 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 59 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Although differing in some details, recent molecular phylogenetic analyses of the Natricinae (Figueroa et al., 2016; Guo et al., 2012, 2014; Pyron, Burbrink et al., 2013; Pyron, Kandambi et al., 2013), including ours, agree on the general pattern of relationships among the major lineages. A basal dichotomy separates the subfamily into two major clades.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…(2014) Aspidura guentheri RAP0437Sri Lanka KC347472 KC347380 KC347418 Pyron, Kandambi et al. (2013) Atretium schistosum _1HT0799Sri Lanka LC325348 LC325794 –This study Atretium schistosum _2–Sri Lanka KC347487 KC347383 KC347421 Pyron Kandambi et al. (2013) Atretium yunnanensis GP842China JQ678448 JQ281787 KJ685602 Guo et al.…”

Section: Accession Numbers and Their Localities (Countries) For All Dmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…(2014) Balanophis ceylonensis _1HT0785Sri Lanka LC325339 LC325785 LC326026 This study Balanophis ceylonensis *_2HT0786Sri Lanka LC325339 ––This study Balanophis ceylonensis _3HT0787Sri Lanka LC325340 LC325786 –This study Haplocercus ceylonensis RS145Sri Lanka KC347478 KC347401 KC347438 Pyron, Kandambi et al. (2013) Hebius atemporale HT0550China LC325320 LC325766 –This study Hebius craspedogaster HT0801China LC325350 LC325796 –This study Hebius ishigakiensis HT0800Japan…”

Section: Accession Numbers and Their Localities (Countries) For All Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Evolution of nuchal glands, unusual defensive organs of Asian natricine snakes (Serpentes: Colubridae), inferred from a molecular phylogeny

Takeuchi

Savitzky

Ding

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A large body of evidence indicates that evolutionary innovations of novel organs have facilitated the subsequent diversification of species. Investigation of the evolutionary history of such organs should provide important clues for understanding the basis for species diversification. An Asian natricine snake, Rhabdophis tigrinus, possesses a series of unusual organs, called nuchal glands, which contain cardiotonic steroid toxins known as bufadienolides. Rhabdophis tigrinus sequesters bufadienolides from its toad prey and stores them in the nuchal glands as a defensive mechanism. Among more than 3,500 species of snakes, only 17 Asian natricine species are known to possess nuchal glands or their homologues. These 17 species belong to three nominal genera, Balanophis, Macropisthodon, and Rhabdophis. In Macropisthodon and Rhabdophis, however, species without nuchal glands also exist. To infer the evolutionary history of the nuchal glands, we investigated the molecular phylogenetic relationships among Asian natricine species with and without nuchal glands, based on variations in partial sequences of Mt‐CYB, Cmos, and RAG1 (total 2,767 bp). Results show that all species with nuchal glands belong to a single clade (NGC). Therefore, we infer that the common ancestor of this clade possessed nuchal glands with no independent origins of the glands within the members. Our results also imply that some species have secondarily lost the glands. Given the estimated divergence time of related species, the ancestor of the nuchal gland clade emerged 19.18 mya. Our study shows that nuchal glands are fruitful subjects for exploring the evolution of novel organs. In addition, our analysis indicates that reevaluation of the taxonomic status of the genera Balanophis and Macropisthodon is required. We propose to assign all species belonging to the NGC to the genus Rhabdophis, pending further study.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Accession Numbers and Their Localities (Countries) For All Dmentioning

confidence: 83%

Section: Accession Numbers and Their Localities (Countries) For All Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Evolution of nuchal glands, unusual defensive organs of Asian natricine snakes (Serpentes: Colubridae), inferred from a molecular phylogeny

Takeuchi

Savitzky

Ding

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Finally, we used Geneious to concatenate all genes to create a supermatrix. This matrix contained 71.41% of missing data; however, previous studies have shown that missing data does not negatively influence topology, branch length estimates, and node support [15,23,40,41]. We deposited all sequences generated from this study in GenBank (S2 Table).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Species-Level Phylogeny of Extant Snakes with Description of a New Colubrid Subfamily and Genus

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundWith over 3,500 species encompassing a diverse range of morphologies and ecologies, snakes make up 36% of squamate diversity. Despite several attempts at estimating higher-level snake relationships and numerous assessments of generic- or species-level phylogenies, a large-scale species-level phylogeny solely focusing on snakes has not been completed. Here, we provide the largest-yet estimate of the snake tree of life using maximum likelihood on a supermatrix of 1745 taxa (1652 snake species + 7 outgroup taxa) and 9,523 base pairs from 10 loci (5 nuclear, 5 mitochondrial), including previously unsequenced genera (2) and species (61).ResultsIncreased taxon sampling resulted in a phylogeny with a new higher-level topology and corroborate many lower-level relationships, strengthened by high nodal support values (> 85%) down to the species level (73.69% of nodes). Although the majority of families and subfamilies were strongly supported as monophyletic with > 88% support values, some families and numerous genera were paraphyletic, primarily due to limited taxon and loci sampling leading to a sparse supermatrix and minimal sequence overlap between some closely-related taxa. With all rogue taxa and incertae sedis species eliminated, higher-level relationships and support values remained relatively unchanged, except in five problematic clades.ConclusionOur analyses resulted in new topologies at higher- and lower-levels; resolved several previous topological issues; established novel paraphyletic affiliations; designated a new subfamily, Ahaetuliinae, for the genera Ahaetulla, Chrysopelea, Dendrelaphis, and Dryophiops; and appointed Hemerophis (Coluber) zebrinus to a new genus, Mopanveldophis. Although we provide insight into some distinguished problematic nodes, at the deeper phylogenetic scale, resolution of these nodes may require sampling of more slowly-evolving nuclear genes.

show abstract

“…Ludwig Hermann Plate in his four-volume Fauna et Anatomia ceylanica (1922)(1923)(1924)(1925)(1926)(1927)(1928)(1929)(1930)(1931) provided detailed examinations of rarely-studied animals including caecilians, veronicellid slugs, leaf insects, chitons and reef fishes, covering a variety of fields including biogeography, while A. Humbert (1829-1887) was among the earliest workers who sought to explain the similarities of the insular faunas of the Sunda 4 The shieldtail-snake family Uropeltidae, and also the hump nosed pit vipers of the genus Hypnale, are largely restricted to Sri Lanka and southern India. The genus Cercaspis, though earlier considered endemic to Sri Lanka, has been shown in the molecular analysis of Pyron et al, (2013) to be a synonym of the more widespread genus Lycodon, with Haplocercus shown to be a synonym of the Sri Lankan endemic genus Aspisdura. Several genera of reptiles present in southern India are absent from Sri Lanka, including Chalcides, Draco, Ophiophagus, Rhabdops, Salea, Indotestudo, Scincella and Psammophis (Das, 1996).…”

Section: Zoogeographymentioning

confidence: 99%

The development of Sri Lankan biogeography in the colonial period

Pethiyagoda¹,

Sudasinghe²

2017

Ceylon J. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Studies of the patterns and processes of biogeography necessarily contingent on a robust taxonomic foundation which, in turn, depends on a thorough exploration of the biota of the concerned regions. The formal exploration of the flora and fauna of Sri Lanka commenced in the second half of the 17th century, during the Dutch colonial period. The earliest cabinet of Sri Lankan plants was acquired by Paul Hermann between 1672 and 1679. This resulted in three floras of Sri Lanka being published in a span of three decades: Hermann (1717), Johannes Burman (1737) and Carl Linnaeus (1747). The publication of nearcomplete 'floras' of India and Sri Lanka at the end of the 19th century paved the way for Henry Trimen to seek to explain the geographic affinities of the Sri Lankan angiosperms, noting the disjunct distributions of several plant groups between Sri Lanka and southern India on one hand, and Sri Lanka and Indomalaya on the other. This allowed John Christopher Willis to undertake further investigations of the distributions of the Sri Lankan flora, especially within the island. Willis was the first botanist to observe the high incidence of microendemism in the island, leading to his since-discredited theory of Age and Area, which argued that taxa with smaller distributions must be of more recent evolutionary origin.In contrast to the development of the floral inventory centred on the Herbarium in the Royal Botanic Garden, Peradeniya, the faunal inventory lacked an institutional foundation. Most species were described by foreign zoologists, often based on specimens that lacked precise locality data. Zoogeographical studies have thus lagged phytogeographic analyses, and also been bedevilled by taxonomic uncertainties. Nevertheless, in his pioneering global zoogeography, Alfred Russel Wallace (1877) considered Sri Lanka, together with South India, as a distinct sub-region of his Oriental Region, thereby recognizing the distinction of the biota of this sub-region from that of the rest of India. Wallace, however, invoked numerous land-bridges to explain faunal disjunctions. Meanwhile, D.N. Wadia's work on the orogeny of the subcontinent helped explain historical biotic connectivity. His identification of the plains of erosion in Sri Lanka laid the ground for the future biogeographic characterization of the island.By the time of Independence in the mid-20th century, a stable picture of the external relationships of the island's biota had emerged: close and evidently recent links to the southern Western Ghats of India; older links to Indomalaya, evidently severed by the Gangetic 'Chatterjee Partition' and the subsequent desiccation of much of the Indian peninsula; and a handful of possible 'Gondwanan' links to Madagascar. However, the large number of REVIEW ARTICLE biotic disjunctions between Sri Lanka and regions further afield remained to be explained. Dispersal appears to be the most likely scenario for most of these. Despite the accumulation of vast amounts of geospatial data by the end of the colonial period,...

show abstract

Genus-level phylogeny of snakes reveals the origins of species richness in Sri Lanka

Cited by 85 publications

References 59 publications

Evolution of nuchal glands, unusual defensive organs of Asian natricine snakes (Serpentes: Colubridae), inferred from a molecular phylogeny

Evolution of nuchal glands, unusual defensive organs of Asian natricine snakes (Serpentes: Colubridae), inferred from a molecular phylogeny

A Species-Level Phylogeny of Extant Snakes with Description of a New Colubrid Subfamily and Genus

The development of Sri Lankan biogeography in the colonial period

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About