Systematics of Pristimantis: exploring morphological characters (Amphibia, Anura, Brachycephaloidea)

• Grant number: 15/14959-3
• Support type: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): September 01, 2015
• Effective date (End): February 12, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Morphology of Recent Groups
• Principal researcher: Taran Grant
• Grantee: Mariane Targino Rocha
• Supervisor abroad: John Douglas Lynch
• Home Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UN), Colombia
• Associated to the scholarship: 12/09401-5 - Phylogenetic relationships of Pristimantis Jiménez de la Espada, 1870, a megadiverse genus of frogs (Anura, Terrarana, Craugastoridae), BP.DR

Abstract

The genus Pristimantis, composed of neotropical direct development frogs distributed, is the largest vertebrate genus with almost 500 species distributed in Central and South America. Recently, several molecular analyzes were published including representatives of the genus, and they showed the non monophyly of the species groups previously defined in literature based on morphological data, and the lack of stability in the internal relationships. Now, Pristimantis comprises 11 species groups, although most of the species are not allocated in any group. The doctoral thesis of the present student aims a phylogenetic analysis of the genus based on molecular and morphological characters. For this purpose, it is already sequenced 450 terminals, that triples the number of terminals sampled in previous phylogenetic analyzes. The general goal of the present project is to develop a morphological study of the species of Pristimantis that represent the diversity of clades found in analyzes performed during the doctoral project, when several species were added for the first time. A morphological matrix will be constructed with emphasis in set of characters that were previously used in literature to diagnose species and define species groups in Pristimantis and genera in Brachycephaloidea, with the purpose to make a total evidence analysis. The internship will be held in the Laboratório de Herpetología, Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, in Bogotá, Colombia. Many species of Pristimantis are deposited in the herpetological collection of that Institute, since Colombia is the country with the greatest diversity of the genus. The study will be conducted under the supervision of Dr. John Lynch, the curator of the collection and the greatest expert in the group. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

GONZALEZ-DURAN, GUSTAVO A.; TARGINO, MARIANE; RADA, MARCO; GRANT, TARAN. Phylogenetic relationships and morphology of the Pristimantis leptolophus species group (Amphibia: Anura: Brachycephaloidea), with the recognition of a new species group in Pristimantis Jimenez de la Espada, 1870. Zootaxa, v. 4243, n. 1, p. 42-74, MAR 14 2017. (15/14959-3, 12/10000-5, 12/09401-5)