Parachute geckos free fall into synonymy: Gekko phylogeny, and a new subgeneric classification, inferred from thousands of ultraconserved elements

Abstract

Recent phylogenetic studies of gekkonid lizards have revealed unexpected, widespread paraphyly and polyphyly among genera, unclear generic boundaries, and a tendency towards the nesting of taxa exhibiting specialized, apomorphic morphologies within geographically widespread "generalist" clades. This is especially true in the Australasia, where the monophyly of Gekko proper has been questioned with respect to phenotypically ornate flaplegged geckos of the genus Luperosaurus, the Philippine false geckos of the genus Pseudogekko, and even the elaborately "derived" parachute geckos of the genus Ptychozoon. Here we employ sequence capture targeting 5060 ultraconserved elements to infer phylogenomic relationships among 42 representative ingroup gekkonine lizard taxa. We analyzed multiple datasets of varying degrees of completeness (10, 50, 75, 95, and 100 percent complete with 4715, 4051, 3376, 2366, and 772 UCEs, respectively) using concatenated maximum likelihood and multispecies coalescent methods. Our sampling scheme was designed to address four persistent systematic questions in this group: (1) Are Luperosaurus and Ptychozoon monophyletic and are any of these named species truly nested within Gekko? (2) Are prior phylogenetic estimates of Sulawesi's L. iskandari as sister to Melanesian G. vittatus supported by our genome-scale dataset? (3) Is the high elevation L. gulat of Palawan Island correctly placed within Gekko? (4) And, finally, where do the enigmatic taxa P. rhacophorus and L. browni fall in a higher-level gekkonid phylogeny? We resolve these issues; confirm with strong support some previously inferred findings (placement of Ptychozoon taxa within Gekko; the sister relationship between L.

Northward geographic diversification of a kleptoparasitic spider Argyrodes lanyuensis (Araneae, Theridiidae) from the Philippine Archipelago to Orchid Island

“…It consists of more than 7,000 oceanic islands situated at a unique location—spanning portions of the Australasian and Asian faunal regions (Brown & Diesmos, 2009 ; Brown et al., 2013 ; Lohman et al., 2011 ). It hosts substantial genetic structure, both within species and among highly differentiated lineages (Brown et al., 2016 ; Hosner et al., 2014 ; Siler, Oaks, et al., 2012 ; Su et al., 2014 ; Wood et al., 2020 ). The subdivision of populations, species, and even higher taxa have been hypothesized to be the result of dynamics current and historical geographic processes of the archipelago (Hall, 1998 , 2002 ; Yumul et al., 2009 ).…”

Generalizing Bayesian phylogenetics to infer shared evolutionary events

“…Our findings of weak to moderate support for a small number of shared and multifurcating divergences during the diversification of Cyrtodactylus and Gekko is consistent with accumulating evidence that many different processes of diversification have played important roles across the Philippines, not just island fragmentation. Nonetheless, it remains possible, and in some ways likely, that a simultaneous analysis involving broader taxonomic sampling of Philippine gekkonids (e.g., Gekko, Cyrtodactylus, Pseudogekko, Lepidodactylus, and Luperosaurus; Wood, Jr. et al, 2020) would reveal greater support for an increased number of shared divergences across the archipelago. For example, early divergences in both genera show patterns consistent with early arrival into the archipelago, and subsequent diversification, via the Palawan Island Arc (Blackburn et al, 2010;Siler et al, 2012).…”

Preliminary report on the herpetofaunal diversity of Batu Hampar Recreational Forest, Kedah, Malaysia

“…Gekko cicakterbang reported from BPFR was previously recognized as Ptychozoon lionotum by Ibrahim et al (2012). The species from the genus Ptychozoon are nested within the genus Gekko based on Wood et al (2020), and Ptychozoon is now recognized as a subgenus. Grismer et al (2019a) described the population of G. lionotum from Peninsular Malaysia as a new species, G. cicakterbang.…”