More evidence of cryptic diversity in Anatololacerta species complex Arnold, Arribas and Carranza, 2007 (Squamata: Lacertidae) and re-evaluation of its current taxonomy

Abstract

Genetic diversity is not always congruent with phenotypic heterogeneity, resulting in cryptic species complexes which cause a great struggle for scientists trying to define ‘species’ and describe relationships among taxa. Anatololacerta is a lizard genus distributed in southern and western Anatolia and some neighboring Aegean islands. Three morphospecies were recognized in Anatololacerta but a recent molecular study revealed the presence of cryptic diversity within the genus which led to the raise of a subspecies to species level. Currently the genus includes the species A. anatolica, A. danfordi, A. budaki and A. pelasgiana. Using a comprehensive sampling concerning both the number of specimens (218 specimens) and the genetic markers (3 nuclear and 3 mitochondrial), we performed phylogenetic analyses including tree reconstruction, species delimitation and divergence times estimation. The results revealed the occurrence of one more cryptic lineage which should be regarded as a separate species for which the name A. ibrahimi stat. nov. has priority. The existence of five well differentiated species with parapatric distributions in Anatololacerta is strongly supported. There is also evidence of recent and rapid radiation of the genus which probably causes phylogenetic relationships between these species to remain largely unresolved. At last, we proceeded to some nomenclatorial changes: The current name A. budaki was synonymized with A. pelasgiana because specimens of the type-locality of A. budaki are assigned genetically to A. pelasgiana. The genetic lineage including specimens currently assigned to A. budaki was named A. finikensis stat. nov., raising the subspecies A. b. finikensis to species level.

First record of Anatololacerta pelasgiana (Mertens, 1959) in mainland Greece: another new species in Athens

“…To confirm the above results, we carried out a phylogenetic analysis using the data from Karakasi et al (2021), which is the most recent and complete dataset including all species of Anatololacerta from the eastern Mediterranean region (for more details see Table 1). The alignment of the sequences was performed using the ClustalW implemented in MEGAX v.10.2.2 (Kumar et al 2018), whereas the best model of nucleotide substitution was selected using the PartitionFinder (PF) v.2.1 (Guindon et al 2010;Lanfear et al 2012;Lanfear et al 2016).…”

“…The lacertid genus Anatololacerta comprises five species according to the latest phylogenetic review of the taxon (Karakasi et al 2021). Three of them occur both in Turkey and in some southeastern Greek islands: A. anatolica (Werner, 1900) in Samos and Ikaria, A. finikensis (Eiselt & Schmidtler, 1986) in Psomi islet and A. pelasgiana (Mertens, 1959) in Kastelorizo, Rhodes, Symi and surrounding islets (Fig.…”

“…Three of them occur both in Turkey and in some southeastern Greek islands: A. anatolica (Werner, 1900) in Samos and Ikaria, A. finikensis (Eiselt & Schmidtler, 1986) in Psomi islet and A. pelasgiana (Mertens, 1959) in Kastelorizo, Rhodes, Symi and surrounding islets (Fig. 1; Karakasi et al 2021;Uetz et al 2021). The Pelasgian rock lizard is a small bodied (SVL up to 65 mm) diurnal species that feeds on invertebrates, mainly insects (Valakos et al 2008).…”

“…Total genomic DNA was extracted from the above specimen using a standard ammonium acetate protocol (Bruford et al 1998). A fragment (~ 430 bp) of the mitochondrial gene (mtDNA) encoding for cytochrome b (cyt b), which is one of the most commonly amplified gene markers in the Lacertidae, was amplified through PCR using the primers GLUDG and CB2 (Palumbi 1996), following the conditions described in Karakasi et al (2021). Double stranded sequencing was carried out using the Big-Dye Terminator v.3.1 Cycle Sequencing kit on an ABI3730 automated sequencer (CEMIA, Larissa, Greece), following the manufacturer's protocol and using the same primers as in PCR.…”

ReptIslands: Mediterranean islands and the distribution of their reptile fauna

“…(2019) for additional details and examples. Nomenclature followed the Reptile Database v. 2020_12 (http://www.reptile-database.org/data/; accessed 1 December 2021), updated with recent phylogenetic data on Anatololacerta (Karakasi et al., 2021) and with the addition of Podarcis galerai , recently recognized as a full species (Bassitta et al., 2020).…”