Journal
ZOOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY
Volume 163, Issue 4, Pages 1217-1243Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2011.00747.x
Keywords
Australia; Lipinia; new genera; Papuascincus; Parvoscincus; Scincella; Sphenomorphus group; South-East Asia; taxonomy
Categories
Funding
- Ministry of Education, Solomon Islands
- Cagayan Valley Program on Environment and Development
- Conservation International Philippines
- Rufford Foundation
- National Museum of the Philippines
- NSF DEB [0073199, 0640737, EF 0334952, 0910341]
- Clark Fellowship
- University of Kansas (KU) Biodiversity Institute
- University of Kansas
- CAS
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [0640737] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Environmental Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences [0073199, 0910341] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Skinks of the genus Sphenomorphus are the most diverse clade of squamates in the Philippine Archipelago. Morphological examination of these species has defined six phenotypic groups that are commonly used in characterizations of taxonomic hypotheses. We used a molecular phylogeny based on four mitochondrial and two nuclear genes to assess the group's biogeographical history in the archipelago and examine the phylogenetic validity of the currently recognized Philippine species groups. We re-examined traditional characters used to define species groups and used multivariate statistics to quantitatively evaluate group structure in morphometric space. Clustering analyses of phenotypic similarity indicate that some (but not all) members of previously defined species groups are phenotypically most similar to other members of the same group. However, when species group membership was mapped on our partitioned Bayesian phylogenetic hypothesis, only one species group corresponds to a clade; all other species group arrangements are strongly rejected by our phylogeny. Our results demonstrate that (1) previously recognized species group relationships were misled by phenotypic convergence; (2) Sphenomorphus is widely paraphyletic; and (3) multiple lineages have independently invaded the Philippines. Based on this new perspective on the phylogenetic relationships of Philippine Sphenomorphus, we revise the archipelago's diverse assemblage of species at the generic level, and resurrect and/or expand four previously recognized genera, and describe two new genera to accommodate the diversity of Philippine skinks of the Sphenomorphus group. (C) 2011 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2011, 163, 1217-1243. doi: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2011.00747.x
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