Morphological variation and mitochondrial DNA diversity in natural populations of Dendropsophus minutus (Anura: Hylidae)

Author(s)

Gabriel Toselli Barbosa Tabosa do Egito

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Biologia
• Defense date: 2009-11-05

Examining board members

Shirlei Maria Recco Pimentel; Cynthia Peralta de Almeida Prado; Odair Aguiar Junior; Luciana Bolsoni Lourenço

• Advisor: Shirlei Maria Recco Pimentel

Abstract

In despite of its complex reproductive behavior, Dendropsophus minutus has a large distribution at East of Andes, South America and show high acoustic and morphologic diversity, suggesting that possibly more than one species may exist under this name. Its dorsum coloration has basically two main patterns, hourglass or bivittata. Here, 14 morphometric parameters and partial mitochondrial cytochrome b gene sequences (357 base pairs) were analyzed aiming to understand more about Brazilian D. minutus variation. Both molecular and morphologic results agree with a high structuration of this species diversity, showing population divergence generally proportional to their geographic distance, except in São Paulo State, southeastern Brazil. At this region, Serra do Mar high mountains are apparently acting as a barrier for dispersion, isolating two lineages. The first of them, formed by populations from Atlantic Rainforest domain, has an hourglass dorsum pattern, whereas the second, comprising inner São Paulo State populations gathered with D. minutus from Rio Grande do Sul (South Brazil), shows bivittata dorsum coloration pattern. These results corroborate the hypothesis that D. minutus could comprise more than one species, revealing two cryptic lineages. However, these lineages should not be defined as different species before sampling enlargement to the present study. (AU)