New insights on phylogeography and distribution of painted frogs (Discoglossus) in northern Africa and the Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

Abstract. Painted frogs (Discoglossus) contain five to six species of Western Palearctic anurans that are mainly distributed in allopatry. We here provide the first comprehensive assessment of the phylogeography of the Moroccan species D. scovazzi and geographically characterize its contact zone with D. pictus in Eastern Morocco. Discoglossus scovazzi shows, in general, a weak phylogeographic structure across Morocco on the basis of mitochondrial DNA sequences of the cytochrome b gene, with only populations centered in the Atlas Mountains characterized by the presence of slightly divergent haplotypes. In eastern Morocco, all populations east of the Moulouya River were clearly assignable to D. pictus. This species was also found along the Mediterranean coast west of the Moulouya, in the cities of Nador and Melilla, suggesting that not the river itself but the wide arid valley extending along much of the river (except close to the estuary) acts as a possible distributional barrier to these frogs. No sympatry of D. scovazzi with D. pictus was observed, and all specimens were concordantly assigned to either species by DNA sequences of cytochrome b and of the nuclear marker RAG1. Species distribution models of the two taxa show largely overlapping areas of suitable habitat, and the two species' niches are significantly more similar than would be expected given the underlying environmental differences between the regions in which they occur. Comparative data are also presented from the southern Iberian contact zone of D. galganoi galganoi and D. g. jeanneae. These taxa showed less clear-cut distributional borders, extensively shared RAG1 haplotypes, and had instances of sympatric occurrence on the basis of cytochrome b haplotypes, in agreement with the hypothesis of a yet incomplete speciation. In this wide contact zone area we found mitochondrial sequences containing double peaks in electropherograms, suggesting nuclear pseudogenes or (less likely) heteroplasmy, possibly related to the ongoing admixture among the lineages.

Pleistocene diversification in Morocco and recent demographic expansion in the Mediterranean pond turtleMauremys leprosa

“…Conversely, putative barriers, such as the arid valley of Moulouya, acted as an effective barrier to population dispersal of several taxa (e.g. Fritz et al ., ; Vences et al ., ; Lalis et al ., ; Nicolas et al ., ). Our results show a series of evidence that supports a demographic expansion of sublineage B3 from Morocco eastwards to Tunisia.…”

Phylogeographic patterns in North African water frog Pelophylax saharicus (Anura: Ranidae)

“…() and Vences et al. () for Discoglossus , from Fritz et al. () for Testudo graeca , from Carranza and Arnold () and Carranza and Wade () for Pleurodeles , from Guiller and Madec () for Cornu aspersum , from Kornilios et al.…”

“…In the frog Discoglossus, distinct species are found in Tunisia and the western side of the Moulouya River Basin in Morocco (Discoglossus pictus and D. scovazzi, respectively). Moreover, two distinct clades are observed within D. pictus between Tunisia and eastern Morocco (Zangari et al 2006;Vences et al 2014). Sampling is lacking from Algeria so far.…”

“…When more than two clades were observed, a simplified tree is presented. Data derived from Barata et al (2008) and Guicking et al (2008) for Natrix maura, from Zangari et al (2006) and Vences et al (2014) for Discoglossus, from Fritz et al (2009) for Testudo graeca, from Carranza and Arnold (2004) and Carranza and Wade (2004) for Pleurodeles, from Guiller and Madec (2010) for Cornu aspersum, from Kornilios et al (2010) for Chalcides ocellatus, from Mendoc ßa and for Trogonophis wiegmanni, from Kapli et al (2008) for Mesalina guttulata and from Recuero et al (2007) for Hyla meridionalis that several substitutions are found between specimens from Tassili n'Ajjer compared to those located North of the Sahara suggests that the isolation of the Tassili n'Ajjer population may have occurred at the end of the Pleistocene.…”

Phylogeography and ecological niche modeling unravel the evolutionary history of the African green toad,Bufotes boulengeri boulengeri(Amphibia: Bufonidae), through the Quaternary

“…While strong phylogeographic structure is commonly found in amphibian species across the Maghreb region (Ben Hassine, Gutiérrez‐Rodríguez, Escoriza, & Martínez‐Solano, ; Nicolas, Mataame, Crochet, Geniez, & Ohler, ; Recuero, Iraola, Rubio, Machordom, & Garcia‐Paris, ; Vences et al., ), previous studies on B. b. boulengeri uncovered a surprisingly weak intraspecific differentiation over its geographic range (Batista, Carranza, Carretero, & Harris ; Stöck et al., , ). This is especially unexpected because fossil data indicate that the African green toad has been present in North Africa since the beginning of the Pleistocene (2.5 Ma in Morocco, (Bailon, ).…”