Molecular identification, description, and phylogenetic implications of the tadpoles of 11 species of Malagasy treefrogs, genusBoophis

Abstract

Based on specimens identified by DNA barcoding, we describe the tadpoles of 11 species of treefrogs (Boophis) in the Malagasy family Mantellidae. All tadpoles belong to species of the stream-breeding clade within Boophis. Based on these and other published descriptions of Boophis tadpoles which develop in running water bodies, we tentatively distinguish three ecomorphological guilds for these larvae. Guild A, in which we describe the larvae of B. boehmei, B. reticulatus, B. pyrrhus, B. tasymena, and B. viridis which have few lotic adaptations, their oral disc width being 31-43% of body width, with a single row of 48-81 marginal papillae, and the first upper keratodont row having 58-144 keratodonts. Guild B, in which we describe the tadpoles of B. albilabris, B. madagascariensis, B. luteus, and of an undescribed species here named B. sp. aff. elenae, is intermediate, with an enlarged oral disc, an increasing number of keratodont rows and a lower height of the caudal fin. In these tadpoles, oral disc width is 43-63% of body width, they have one or two rows of 69-164 marginal papillae, and the first upper keratodont row has 164-238 keratodonts. Guild C contains tadpoles with a very large oral disc, living on submerged rocks and stones in stream sections of strong current. In this guild we describe the tadpoles of B. marojezensis and B. sibilans. Their oral disc width is 63-89% of body width, there are multiple rows of many marginal papillae, and the first upper keratodont row has many small keratodonts which are difficult to count, but consistently amount to over 200. In B. marojezensis, the dorsal gap in the marginal papillae rows, apparent in all other species, is closed. These larval morphologies show a rather good fit with recently published molecular phylogenetic data: species groups that were confirmed to be monophyletic in most cases have similar larval morphologies, and, in contrast, where species of the same group have disparate larval morphologies the monophyly of the group is questionable (e.g. the B. majori group). Nevertheless, some cases of convergent evolution are apparent, such as the highly specialized Guild C morphology, which may have evolved separately in the B. albipunctatus group, B. mandraka group, and in some species of the B. majori group.

Unraveling the relative contribution of inter‐ and intrapopulation functional variability in wild populations of a tadpole species

“…Based on the criteria that functional traits should be easily quantified on a large number of individuals (Dumay, Tari, Tomasini, & Mouillot, ), and on the basis of published literatures (Azizi, Landberg, & Wassersug, ; Eidietis, ; Grosjean, Randrianiaina, Strauß, & Vences, ; Grosjean, Strauß, et al., ; Raharivololoniaina, Grosjean, Raminosoa, Glaw, & Vences, ; Strauß et al., ; Van Buskirk & McCollum, ), nine complementary functional traits were selected to reflect the main ecological functions of tadpoles in freshwater ecosystems. These traits include total length (TL), body length (BL), body maximum height (BMH), body maximum width (BMW), tail length (TAL), tail muscle width (TMW), tail muscle height (TMH), oral disk width (OD), interocular distance (IO), and distance from tip of snout to opening of spiracle (SS; Figure ; Glos, Teschke, and Vences (); Fei et al., ; Aguayo, Lavilla, Vera Candioti, & Camacho, ; Baldo, Maneyro, & Laufer, ; Grosjean, Strauß, et al., ).…”

The world's richest tadpole communities show functional redundancy and low functional diversity: ecological data on Madagascar's stream-dwelling amphibian larvae

“…Respective morphological data were sourced from publications [11,45,64-67]. If lacking a published description, they were assessed from the sampled specimens using a Zeiss StereoDiscovery microscope with Zeiss AxioVision software.…”

Diversity of the strongly rheophilous tadpoles of Malagasy tree frogs, genus Boophis (Anura, Mantellidae), and identification of new candidate species via larval DNA sequence and morphology

“…All of the latter are characterized by having one (the first) uninterrupted upper keratodont row and one (the first) interrupted lower keratodont row, typically smooth (non-ribbed) jaw sheaths and a medial convexity in the upper jaw sheath (see Raharivololoniaina et al 2006, Randrianiaina et al 2009a, b, and Rasolonjatovo et al 2010). Specialization to a strongly rheophilous life thus involves (1) reduction of the size of the jaw sheaths correlated with (2) the disappearance of the medial convexity, (3) reduction of the size of the dorsal gap of marginal papillae, (4) reduction of the length of the row A 1 , (5) reduction of the number of keratodonts in A 1 , compensated by an increase of the number of (6) marginal and (7) submarginal papillae and (8) of the uninterrupted upper keratodont rows.…”