Study of closely related species within the Physalaemus cuvieri group (Anura): contribution of microsatellite markers

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Various species of the Physalaemus cuvieri group of frogs are difficult to distinguish morphologically, making molecular analysis an attractive alternative for indentifying members of this group, which is considered to be at risk because of loss of habitat. The genetic structure of natural populations of P. ephippifer and P. albonotatus species was investigated and analyzed, together with that of five previously studied populations of P. cuvieri. Nine microsatellite loci were used in the analyses. The overall G ST value (0.46) revealed high genetic variation among the populations, as expected for different species. Bayesian analysis implemented by the STRUCTURE software clustered the seven populations into seven groups (K = 7). All the P. albonotatus and P. ephippifer specimens were grouped into a single cluster, both Microsatellites for Physalaemus cuvieri group species showing clear differentiation from P. cuvieri. The different grouping based on these microsatellites of some P. cuvieri individuals from Porto Nacional and from Passo Fundo suggests that they could be a new species, indicating a necessity for taxonomic reevaluation. Despite the intrinsic difficulties in analyzing closely related species, the nine microsatellite loci were found to be adequate for distinguishing these three species of the P. cuvieri group and their populations.

The pioneering use of ISSR (Inter Simple Sequence Repeat) in Neotropical anurans: preliminary assessment of genetic diversity in populations of Physalaemus cuvieri (Amphibia, Leiuperidae)

“…In relation to the expected heterozygosity (H e ), our study showed high values ranging from 0.46 to 0.51. Similar results were obtained by Conte et al (2011) using microsatellite markers in 85 individuals from 5 populations (14 to 21 individuals/ populations), with high observed heterozygosities (H o ) ranging from 0.31 to 0.59 (and H e ranging from 0.30 to 0.58). As already shown in other studies, forest fragments can contribute to the maintenance of species diversity of frogs (Silva and Rossa- , and the present study supports that the genetic diversity can also be maintained, and thus the populations would be potentially more protected from the extinction factor due to environmental changes.…”

“…Aggressive interactions among males are frequently observed, mainly during the period of high activity levels (Barreto and Andrade, 1995). Studies using genetic molecular markers (microsatellite and RAPD) to evaluate the variation and population genetic structure of P. cuvieri have shown relatively low dispersion rates, high habitat fi delity and specifi city (Telles et al, 2006;Conte et al, 2011).…”

“…Thus molecular techniques have been used for several studies of anurans, and the most commonly used markers are allozymes (Spasic-Boskovic et al, 1999;Bisconti et al, 2011), RAPD (Telles et al, 2006, mitochondrial DNA (Vences et al, 2005;Funk et al, 2007) and microsatellites (Martínez-Solano and García-París, 2005;Conte et al, 2011).…”

Unraveling the variability and genetic structure of barker frog Physalaemus cuvieri (Leiuperinae) populations from different regions of Brazil

“…Although we found that the RS10 population formed an isolated group and suggested the presence of private alleles, other southern populations of the species were not sampled to confirm this result. A similar result was found when analyzing these populations together with other populations from the Physalaemus group using SSR data (Conte et al, 2011). However, the hypothesis that these specimens belong to a different species was not investigated here, and it certainly cannot be discarded.…”

Cross-species amplification of microsatellite loci developed <i>Digitaria exilis</i> Stapf in related <i>Digitaria</i> species

“…Arens et al, 2007) and parentage analyses (e.g. Conte et al, 2011). The objective of this study was to test the transferability of some SSR loci to other species of the genus Digitaria in order to further investigate the diversity of species for which there is no genomic resources available.…”