Relationships of lacertid lizards (Reptilia: Lacertidae) estimated from mitochondrial DNA sequences and morphology

Abstract

DNA sequences from parts of the 12S, 16S and cytochrome b mitochondrial genes, which totalled 1049 aligned base pairs, were used to estimate the relationships of 49 species of Lacertidae, including representatives of 19 out of the 23 recognized genera and 23 species of the paraphyletic genus Lacerta. These data were used, together with morphological information, to estimate the relationships within the family. Molecular evidence corroborates the monophyletic status of many genera and species groups originally based on morphology. It indicates that Psammodromus forms a clade with Gallotia, which is the sister taxon of all other lacertids. These comprise three units: the primarily Afrotropical armatured group; the largely Oriental Takydromus; and the west Palaearctic Lacerta and its derivatives, Podarcis and Algyroides. Morphology also supports the ¢rst three assemblages, but suggests that they are derived from a paraphyletic Lacerta. Within Lacerta and its allies, DNA sequence analysis corroborates the a¤nity of some members of each of the subgenera Lacerta s. str. and Timon, and of the L. saxicola group. It also supports the relationship of L. monticola, L. bonnali and L. horvathi, and suggests that the L. parvaL. fraasi clade and L. brandti are not related to Psammodromus^Gallotia, as morphology indicates, but instead are associated respectively with the L. danfordi and L. saxicola groups. DNA sequence data provide additional evidence that the eastern Arabian`Lacerta' jayakari and`L.' cyanura are members of the armatured clade and also sister species. Our analysis supports an origin for present lacertids in west Eurasia. The armatured clade invaded Africa, probably in the mid-Miocene, spreading widely and evolving increasingly xeric-adapted forms, one lineage of which later moved back into the Palaearctic. Lacerta' jayakari and`L.' cyanura are assigned to Omanosaura, Lutz and Mayer 1986. The name Gallotiinae Cano, Baez, Lopez-Jurado & Ortega, 1984 is available for the Gallotia^Psammodromus clade, Eremiainae Shcherbak 1975 for the armatured clade and Lacertinae for Lacerta, Podarcis and Algyroides. Two new subgenera of Lacerta are proposed here: Caucasilacerta for L. saxicola and its allies, and Parvilacerta for L. parva and L. fraasi.

Structure and Evolution of the Mitochondrial DNA Complete Control Region in the Lizard Lacerta dugesii (Lacertidae, Sauria)

“…The strong bias against guanosines in the third positions of the cytochrome b gene is typical in reptiles (Harris 2002). Also, part of the cytochrome b and 12S rRNA sequences overlap with previously published sequences of L. dugesii for these regions, and differ from them by less than 1% (Oliverio et al 2000;Harris et al 1998). Further, the free energy of the secondary structure of the 12S rRNA is similar to that of other lacertid species (data not shown; see Harris 2001), although this method does not always clearly identify numts (Olsen and Yoder 2002).…”

From set menu toa la carte. Linking issues in trophic ecology of Mediterranean lacertids

“…Furthermore, the time-for-speciation factor should be taken into account (Stephens & Wiens, 2003): the whole family probably originated in the Mediterranean area (Estes, 1983;Arnold, 1989) and remained there during the Early Cenozoic. The most basal branches in the lacertid phylogeny are clearly restricted to the Western Palearctic (Harris et al, 1998).…”

Parallel gigantism and complex colonization patterns in the Cape Verde scincid lizards Mabuya and Macroscincus (Reptilia: Scincidae) revealed by mitochondrial DNA sequences

“…For most species, total genomic DNA was extracted from 2^3 mm 3 of tail tissue following standard protocols described elsewhere (Harris et al 1998;Carranza et al 2000). The primers used in both ampli¢cation and sequencing were cytochrome b 1 , cytochrome b 2 (Kocher et al 1989), the forward primer of cytochrome b 2 and CB3-3' (Palumbi 1996) for the cytochrome b gene, CO1f-5' and CO1a-3' for the cytochrome oxidase I gene (Palumbi 1996), and 12Sa and 12Sb for the 12S rRNA gene (Kocher et al 1989).…”