Genetic Divergences and Phylogenetic Relationships Amongthe Fejervarya limnocharis Complex by Manabu Kotaki, Atsushi Kurabayashi, Masafumi Matsui, Wichase Khonsue,Tjong Hon Djong, Manuj Tandon and Masayuki Sumida

Among anuran species, Fejervarya limnocharis is one of the most widely distributed species in Asia, extending from Japan in the east to Nepal in the west and Indonesia to the south (Frost, 1985). Because of few morphological differences, “F. limnocharis” has been conventionally regarded as a single species. However, recent detailed analyses have demonstrated that there is a degree of genetic differentiation within conventional F. limnocharis, and therefore it has been suggested that “F. limnocharis” contains several cryptic species (Dubois and Ohler, 2000). For example, Dubois (1975) concluded that Nepalese “F. limnocharis” could be classified into four distinct species. Veith et al. (2001) also described a cryptic species in the F. limnocharis complex from Java, Indonesia, and named it F. iskandari. Consequently, there are now regarded to be 32 species for the genus Fejervarya(Frost, 2006). Thus, the F. limnocharis group to be identified should be called the Fejervarya limnocharis complex (Djong et al., 2007). Furthermore, there are few morphological differences and few morphological characteristics usable for classification throughout this genus, not only for the F. limnocharis complex, and so it is difficult to correctly identify.
Recent molecular phylogenetic studies indicate that the genus Fejervarya is divided into two main groups: the F. limnocharis group distributed in Southeast and East Asia and the F. syhadrensis group distributed in India and South Asia (Kurabayashi et al., 2005; Frost et al., 2006; Sumida et al., 2007). Our mt gene data shows that the haplotype 1 and 2 groups were included in the Southeast Asian group and that haplotype 3 was nested in the South Asian group . Based on mt gene data, in the Southeast Asian group, the haplotype 1 group made a clade with F. limnocharis collected from the type locality of this species. The maximum sequence divergences between haplotype 1 and F. limnocharis were 0.9% and 0.6% for 12S and 16S rRNA genes, respectively. This small sequence divergence of mt genes and the resultant phylogenetic relationship clearly indicate that the haplotype 1 group, which is widely distributed in Thailand, corresponds to the “real” F. limnocharis

Posted on August 27, 2012 05:23 AM by ninad