Two New Species of from Vietnam and Laos with a Discussion of the Taxonomy of (Squamata, Gekkonidae)

Overview

Journal Zookeys

Date 2023 Jun 2

PMID 37266516

Authors

Vinh Quang Luu

Thuong Huyen Nguyen

Minh Duc Le

Jesse L Grismer

Hong Bich Ha

Saly Sitthivong

Tuoi Thi Hoang

L Lee Grismer

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Integrated analyses using maximum likelihood (ML), Bayesian inference (BI), principal component analysis (PCA), discriminate analysis of principal components (DAPC), multiple factor analysis (MFA), and analysis of variance (ANOVA) recovered two new diagnosable species of gekkonid lizards in the genus , one from the Central Highlands, Gia Lai Province, Vietnam and another from the Vientiane Province, Laos. Phylogenetic analyses based on the mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 gene (ND2) and adjacent tRNAs showed that is the sister species of from Dong Nai Province, Vietnam and is nested within a clade that also includes the sister species and . is the sister species to from Khammouane Province, Laos and is embedded in a clade with , , and undescribed species from Thailand. Multivariate (PCA, DAPC, and MFA) and univariate (ANOVA) analyses using combinations of 15 meristic (scale counts), six morphometric (measurements), and five categorical (color pattern and morphology) characters from 44 specimens encompassing all eight species of from Vietnam and Laos clearly illustrate and are statistically different and discretely diagnosable from all closely related species of . These integrative analyses also highlight additional taxonomic issues that remain unresolved within and the need for additional studies. The discovery of these new species further emphasizes the underappreciated herpetological diversity of the genus and illustrates the continued need for field work in these regions.

References

Botov A, Phung T, Nguyen T, Bauer A, Brennan I, Ziegler T . A new species of Dixonius (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Phu Quy Island, Vietnam. Zootaxa. 2015; 4040(1):48-58. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4040.1.4. View

Chan K, Grismer L . GroupStruct: An R Package for Allometric Size Correction. Zootaxa. 2022; 5124(4):471-482. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5124.4.4. View

Bouckaert R, Drummond A . bModelTest: Bayesian phylogenetic site model averaging and model comparison. BMC Evol Biol. 2017; 17(1):42. PMC: 5294809. DOI: 10.1186/s12862-017-0890-6. View

Macey J, Larson A, Ananjeva N, Fang Z, Papenfuss T . Two novel gene orders and the role of light-strand replication in rearrangement of the vertebrate mitochondrial genome. Mol Biol Evol. 1997; 14(1):91-104. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a025706. View

Nguyen T, Luu V, Sitthivong S, Ngo H, Nguyen T, Le M . A new species of Dixonius (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Vientiane Capital, Laos. Zootaxa. 2021; 4965(2):351362. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4965.2.8. View

Ronquist F, Teslenko M, van der Mark P, Ayres D, Darling A, Hohna S . MrBayes 3.2: efficient Bayesian phylogenetic inference and model choice across a large model space. Syst Biol. 2012; 61(3):539-42. PMC: 3329765. DOI: 10.1093/sysbio/sys029. View

Pauwels O, Panitvong N, Kunya K, Sumontha M . A new sandstone-dwelling leaf-toed gecko (Gekkonidae: Dixonius mekongensis) from the Thai-Lao border. Zootaxa. 2021; 4969(3):526538. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4969.3.5. View

Trifinopoulos J, Nguyen L, von Haeseler A, Minh B . W-IQ-TREE: a fast online phylogenetic tool for maximum likelihood analysis. Nucleic Acids Res. 2016; 44(W1):W232-5. PMC: 4987875. DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkw256. View

Nguyen T, Sitthivong S, Ngo H, Luu V, Nguyen T, Le M . A new species of Dixonius (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from the karst forest of Khammouane Province, central Laos. Zootaxa. 2020; 4759(4):zootaxa.4759.4.4. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4759.4.4. View

10.

Lleonart J, Salat J, Torres G . Removing allometric effects of body size in morphological analysis. J Theor Biol. 2000; 205(1):85-93. DOI: 10.1006/jtbi.2000.2043. View

11.

Minh B, Nguyen M, von Haeseler A . Ultrafast approximation for phylogenetic bootstrap. Mol Biol Evol. 2013; 30(5):1188-95. PMC: 3670741. DOI: 10.1093/molbev/mst024. View

12.

Ziegler T, Botov A, Nguyen T, Bauer A, Brennan I, Ngo H . First molecular verification of Dixonius vietnamensis Das, 2004 (Squamata: Gekkonidae) with the description of a new species from Vinh Cuu Nature Reserve, Dong Nai Province, Vietnam. Zootaxa. 2016; 4136(3):553-66. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4136.3.7. View

13.

McCoy M, Bolker B, Osenberg C, Miner B, Vonesh J . Size correction: comparing morphological traits among populations and environments. Oecologia. 2006; 148(4):547-54. DOI: 10.1007/s00442-006-0403-6. View

14.

Wilcox T, Zwickl D, Heath T, Hillis D . Phylogenetic relationships of the dwarf boas and a comparison of Bayesian and bootstrap measures of phylogenetic support. Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2002; 25(2):361-71. DOI: 10.1016/s1055-7903(02)00244-0. View

15.

Barraclough T, William Birky Jr C, Burt A . Diversification in sexual and asexual organisms. Evolution. 2003; 57(9):2166-72. DOI: 10.1111/j.0014-3820.2003.tb00394.x. View

16.

Drummond A, Suchard M, Xie D, Rambaut A . Bayesian phylogenetics with BEAUti and the BEAST 1.7. Mol Biol Evol. 2012; 29(8):1969-73. PMC: 3408070. DOI: 10.1093/molbev/mss075. View

17.

de Queiroz K . Species concepts and species delimitation. Syst Biol. 2007; 56(6):879-86. DOI: 10.1080/10635150701701083. View

18.

Jombart T, Devillard S, Balloux F . Discriminant analysis of principal components: a new method for the analysis of genetically structured populations. BMC Genet. 2010; 11:94. PMC: 2973851. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2156-11-94. View

19.

Hoang D, Chernomor O, von Haeseler A, Minh B, Vinh L . UFBoot2: Improving the Ultrafast Bootstrap Approximation. Mol Biol Evol. 2017; 35(2):518-522. PMC: 5850222. DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msx281. View

20.

Nguyen L, Schmidt H, von Haeseler A, Minh B . IQ-TREE: a fast and effective stochastic algorithm for estimating maximum-likelihood phylogenies. Mol Biol Evol. 2014; 32(1):268-74. PMC: 4271533. DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msu300. View

﻿Two New Species of from Vietnam and Laos with a Discussion of the Taxonomy of (Squamata, Gekkonidae)

Two New Species of from Vietnam and Laos with a Discussion of the Taxonomy of (Squamata, Gekkonidae)