BUSCADOR RECOLECTA

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Digital images of the paper, Mantellid frogs present an extensive adaptive radiation endemic to Madagascar and Comoros, being the subfamily Mantellinae the most morphologically and ecologically diverse. The Mantellinae present key innovative evolutionary traits linked to their unique reproductive behavior, including the presence of femoral glands and a derived vomeronasal organ. In addition, previous studies pointed to size differentiation in playing an important role in species’ dispersal capacities and shaping of their geographic ranges. Despite the high phenotypic variation observed in this clade, to date an exhaustive morphological analysis of their anatomy has still not been performed, much less in relation to internal structures. Here, we present a comprehensive skeletal description of a mantellid species, Blommersia transmarina, from the island of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, which has potentially undergone a process of moderate gigantism compared to other Blommersia species. We describe its intraspecific skeletal variation utilizing non-destructive volume renderings from μCT-scans, and characterize the presence of sexual dimorphism and size covariation in skeletal structures. Notably, we found numerous signs of hyperossification, a novel structure for mantellids: the clavicular process, and the presence of several appendicular sesamoids. Our findings suggest that skeletal phenotypic variation in this genus may be linked to biomechanical function for reproduction and locomotion., Peer reviewed

The amphibian fauna of the western Indian ocean volcanic island of Mayotte is currently constituted by two species belonging to two genera of the anuran family Mantellidae: Blommersia transmarina and Boophis nauticus. These were recently described after intense fieldwork on the herpetofauna of the island. We here describe a third new species of frog from Mayotte, based on morphological and molecular data, that occurs in sympatry with the others and was utterly unnoticed until now. Genetic analyses of the16S rRNA gene, including all described and several undescribed species of the genus Blommersia from Madagascar and Mayotte, confirms that the new species is the sister species of Blommersia transmarina. Both species show apparent morphological differences as well as different life histories, ecology and genetics that confirm Blommersia nataliae sp. nov. as a new species. We propose an IUCN Red List status of Critically Endangered for B. nataliae sp. nov., The Spanish Min-istry of Science and Innovation supported this work with grants CGL2009-10198, CGL2013-40924-P, and CGL2017-89898-R (AEI/FEDER, UE) to DRV.

Genetic data are a crucial and exponentially growing resource across all biological sciences, yet
curated databases are scarce. The widespread occurrence of sequence and (meta)data errors in public repositories calls for comprehensive improvements of curation protocols leading to robust research and downstream analyses. We collated and curated all available GenBank cytochrome-b sequences for amphibians, a benchmark marker in this globally declining vertebrate clade. The Amphibia’s Curated Database of Cytochrome-b (ACDC) consists of 36,514 sequences representing 2,309 species from 398 genera (median = 2 with 50% interquartile ranges of 1–7 species/genus). We updated the taxonomic identity of >4,800 sequences (ca. 13%) and found 2,359 (6%) conflicting sequences with 84% of the errors originating from taxonomic misidentifications. The database (accessible at https:// doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.9944759) also includes an R script to replicate our study for other loci and taxonomic groups. We provide recommendations to improve genetic-data quality in public repositories and flag species for which there is a need for taxonomic refinement in the face of increased rate of amphibian extinctions in the Anthropocene., This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia y Competitividad grant CGL2017-89898-R (AEI/FEDER, EU) grant to DRV., Peer reviewed

Our current understanding of how species have evolved is mainly based on comparative phylogenetic methods, which use phylogenies to infer the evolution of traits. The development of ancestral state reconstruction (ASR) methods has provided the tools to reconstruct trait evolution, which are widely used in fields like evolutionary biology, macroecology and paleontology. As there are different elements involved in those analyses, with different levels of uncertainty (i.e. relating to branch length estimation, trait coding, statistical framework, taxon sampling or software), the various combinations of these elements likely have a strong impact on the reconstruction of the evolution of traits, potentially leading to opposite conclusions. To assess the impact of these different elements in ASR, we performed a set of analyses, including all possible combinations of such elements and using the evolution of migratory behavior in Sylvia warblers as a case study, which was coded as a continuous or as a discrete character. Our results show that taxon sampling, character coding, tree shape, statistical framework and software all significantly affect ASR, both individually and in combination. Not all reconstructed tree nodes show discrepancies, but in the critical ones most pairwise comparisons between analyses lead to conflicting and unexpectedly antagonistic results (zero migration vs fully migratory), thus challenging interpretations of trait evolution. We propose some possible solutions to partly inform decisions, involving the method selection and the incorporation of biological or fossil evidence regarding how traits evolve, but our results demand serious rethinking about how the research community currently uses ASR., This work was supported by a grant of the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and FEDER CGL2013-40924-P, CGL2017-89898-R (AEI/FEDER, UE), and a BiodivERsA: EC21C ERANet grant to DRV. RP was supported by an FPU predoctoral fellowship from the Spanish Ministerio de Educación.

[EN] The northern part of Madagascar is well known for its high species diversity and endemism. Exceptional species richness is related to the existence of large forest blocks and mountain complexes. These areas shelter a diverse variety of habitats occupied by a wide diversity of species, including leaf-tailed geckos of the genus Uroplatus. Based on morphological and molecular evidence, we here formally name two evolutionary lineages as new species that previously had been considered as candidate species (Uroplatus spp. Ca3 and Ca4), both small-sized species of the Uroplatus ebenaui group. Genetically, both new species are related to U. finiavana with a genetic divergence (uncorrected pairwise distance) of 10.3-12.8% in a fragment of the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene, and separated from each other by 10.3-10.7%. Uroplatus fangorn sp. nov. is described from the Marojejy massif and is also known from Andrevorevo, Lohanandroranga and Sorata; it is similar to U. ebenaui and U. fetsy but is distinguishable by its rather short tail and only partially black pigmented oral mucosa. Uroplatus fivehy sp. nov. is described from the Sorata Massif and is wider-ranging, occurring in an area from Marotandrano and Makira to Sorata, comprising Marojejy, Anjanaharibe-Sud, Ankitsika and Betaolana; it is morphologically similar to U. finiavana but distinguishable by tail size and shape. Both newly described species are found in rainforest from mid to high elevation and range respectively from 840-1417 m for U. fivehy sp nov. and 1300-1800 m for U. fangorn sp. nov. According to their respective geographical distributions, we propose to classify the two new species as Vulnerable under the IUCN Red List criteria, due to their occurrence in some forests outside of the protected area network plus the continuing decline of forest patches in the north of Madagascar., [FR] La partie nord de Madagascar est bien connue pour sa grande biodiversité et son endémisme. La richesse spécifique exceptionnelle est liée à l’existence d’immenses blocs forestiers et de complexes montagneux. Ces zones constituent un habitat approprié pour plusieurs espèces telles que les geckos à queue plate du genre Uroplatus. En se référant des évidences morphologiques et moléculaires, nous décrivons deux espèces candidates comme nouvelles espèces, toutes du groupe des geckos à petite taille du groupe Uroplatus ebenaui. Les deux nouvelles espèces sont génétiquement proches de U. finiavana avec une p-distance de 10,3 à 12,8% du fragment du gène 16S ARNr et chacune forme un groupe monophylétique séparé par une p-distance de 10,3 à 10,7%. Uroplatus fangornsp. nov. est décrit du massif de Marojejy et se trouve également à Andrevorevo, Lohanandroranga et Sorata; morphologiquement, il est similaire à U. ebenaui et U. fetsy mais se distingue par sa queue plutôt courte et sa muqueuse buccale moins pigmentée. U. fivehysp. nov. est décrit de la montagne Sorata et aussi connu de Marotandrano, Makira, Marojejy, Anjanaharibe-Sud, Ankitsika et Betaolana; morphologiquement il est similaire à U. finiavana mais se distingue par la taille et la forme de la queue. Les deux espèces nouvellement décrites se trouvent dans la forêt tropicale humide à moyenne et haute altitude respectivement 840–1417 m pour U. fivehy sp. nov. et 1300–1800 m pour U. fangornsp. nov. En fonction de leur répartition géographique respective, nous proposons de classer les deux nouvelles espèces dans la catégorie “Vulnérable” de la liste rouge de l’UICN, en raison de leur présence dans certaines forêts en dehors du réseau de zones protégées et du déclin continu des zones forestières au nord de Madagascar., This work received logistic and financial support by MICET, Volkswagen Foundation and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (grant VE 247/13-1), the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund (project 11253064), BIOPAT, and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (grants CGL2009-10198 and CGL2017-89898-R (AEI/FEDER, UE)).

Quantifying intraspecific variation in heat tolerance is critical to understand how species respond to climate change. In a previous study, we recorded variability in critical thermal maxima (CT) by 3 °C among populations of small Iberian lizard species, which could substantially influence predictions of climate-driven activity restriction. Here, we undertake experiments to examine whether we could reproduce similar levels of heat-tolerance variability in response to water deficit. We hypothesized that deprivation of drinking water should increase variability in CT between populations more than deprivation of food under the theoretical expectation that the variation of the more limiting resource must trigger stronger variation in physiological performance. We measured CT after manipulating availability of live prey and drinking water in two populations of an arid and a mesic lizard species from the Iberian Peninsula. We quantified a mean CT across all studied lizards of 44.2 °C ± 0.2 SE for the arid species and 41.7 °C ± 0.3 SE for the mesic species. Using multimodel inference, we found that water deprivation (combined with food supply) caused population differences in CT by 3 to 4 °C which were two to three times wider than population differences due to food deprivation (combined with water supply) or to food and water provision. To highlight the need for more thermo-hydroregulatory research, we examined bias in research effort towards thermal versus hydric environmental effects on heat tolerance through a systematic literature review. We show that environmental temperature has been used five times more frequently than precipitation in ecological studies of heat tolerance of terrestrial species. Studies linking thermal tolerance of ectotherms to the interplay of air temperature and water availability are needed in the face of projected increases in aridity and drought in the 21st century, because the balance of body temperature and water resources are functionally interlinked., Manuscript development funded through British Ecological Society ‘Research Grant’ 4496-5470 to SHP, and Spanish Ministry of Science grants CGL2011–26852 to MBA and SHP and CGL2017–89898-R to DRV.

The salamander genus Salamandra is widespread across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East and is renowned for its conspicuous and polymorphic colouration and diversity of reproductive modes. The phylogenetic relationships within the genus, and especially in the highly polymorphic species S. salamandra, have been very challenging to elucidate, leaving its real evolutionary history and classification at species and subspecies levels a topic of debate and contention. However, the distribution of diversity and species delimitation within the genus are critically important for identifying evolutionarily significant units for conservation and management, espe-cially in light of threats posed by the pathogenic chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans that is causing massive declines of S. salamandra populations in central Europe. Here, we conducted a phylogenomic analysis from across the taxonomic and geographic breadth of the genus Salamandra in its entire range. Bayesian, maximum likelihood and network-based phylogenetic analyses of up to 4905 ddRADseq-loci (294,300 nucleo-tides of sequence) supported the distinctiveness of all currently recognised species (Salamandra algira, S. atra, S. corsica, S. infraimmaculata, S. lanzai, and S. salamandra), and all five species for which we have multiple ex-emplars were confirmed as monophyletic. Within S. salamandra, two main clades can be distinguished: one clade with the Apenninic subspecies S. s. gigliolii nested within the Iberian S. s. bernardezi/fastuosa; and a second clade comprising all other Iberian, Central and East European subspecies. Our analyses revealed that some of the currently recognized subspecies of S. salamandra are paraphyletic and may require taxonomic revision, with the Central- and Eastern-European subspecies all being poorly differentiated at the analysed genomic markers. Salamandra s. longirostris – sometimes considered a separate species – was nested within S. salamandra, consistent with its subspecies status. The relationships identified within and between Salamandra species provide valuable context for future systematic and biogeographic studies, and help elucidate critical evolutionary units for conservation and taxonomy., This work was funded by a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) research studentship NE/L501918/1 to JDB with KRE and BKM. Partial funding also came from a Royal Society Research Grant to KRE and a Systematics Research Fund award, from the Linnean Society of London and the Systematics Association, to JDB. GVA is supported by FCT (IF/01425/2014). SS received support by the German Research Foundation (DFG) (STE1130/8-1 and BL 1271/1-1) as part of a German- Israeli project cooperation (DIP) grant. DRV received support by a Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and FEDER CGL2017- 89898-R (AEI/FEDER, UE) and LIFE18 NATES000121-LIFE DIVAQUA grants., Peer reviewed

Short Communication, Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is a popular resource used for the study of evolutionary processes in birds, especially to infer divergence times between lineages. In many cases, due to the scarcity of fossils with which to constrain the age of nodes on a phylogenetic topology, dating relies on mtDNA substitution rates that, ideally, are specific to the taxa being studied. As such values are often unavailable, many studies use fixed-rate values from other studies, such as the ‘standard molecular clock’. The validity of this universal rate across all bird lineages and for the different mtDNA loci has been questioned by multiple authors. We here performed the most comprehensive calibration of the mtDNA molecular clock in birds, with the inclusion of complete mitochondrial genomes for 622 bird species and 25 reliable fossil calibrations. The results show variation in the rates among lineages and among markers, confirming the lack of universality of the standard molecular clock. Moreover, we provide specific rates for every mtDNA marker (except D-loop) in each of the sampled avian orders, a valuable tool for molecular clock analyses in the absence of fossil calibrations., This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and FEDER CGL2013-40924-P, CGL2017-89898-R (AEI/FEDER, UE), and a BiodivERsA: EC21C ERANet grant to D.R.V. R.P. was supported by an FPU predoctoral fellowship from the Spanish Ministerio de Educación., Peer reviewed

Within the Malagasy endemic family of Mantellidae, the only completely sequenced mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) is that of Mantella madagascariensis. Yet, this genome has proven to be the largest among all vertebrates with 23 kbp in size, and shows a duplication of the tRNA methionine coding gene, a pseudogene of this same gene and a duplicated control region. In this study, we report the complete mitochondrial genome of Mantella baroni, the second mitogenome sequenced for the Mantellidae family. This genome sequence has been generated using next-generation sequencing technics performed on Illumina Hi-seq. The genome is 20,945 bp (21 kbp) in size with 13 protein-coding genes, 23 tRNA coding genes, 2 rRNA coding genes and 2 Control Regions (CR1 and CR2). This newly generated mitogenome shows duplication of the tRNA glycine coding gene (G1 and G2) and translocation of tRNA methionine coding gene M2 in the CR2. This gene organization is unique among anurans. Both M. baroni and M. madagascariensis mitogenomes are amongst the largest in vertebrates which might be related to their aposematism or their skin toxicity by alkaloid secretion. We also hypothesize that other Mantella species likely have large genomes, being not clear how the genome size and organization of mitochondria evolved in Malagasy frogs. Testing such a hypothesis require more mitogenome sequencing for Mantella and other representatives of the mantellid diversity. The mitogenome generated here will be useful for comparative genomic studies but also to answer the question on how mitogenomes evolved in the Mantellidae family., This research has received grants of the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (FEDER, EU), grant reference: CGL2013-40924-P, and the Agencia Española de Investigación (AEI/FEDER, EU), grant reference: CGL2017-89898-R., Peer reviewed

The ongoing biodiversity crisis is causing rapid species losses faster than taxonomists’capacity to describe new species. Integrative taxonomic approaches need robust taxo-nomic baseline data to correctly describe and conserve global species diversity, in whichgenetic data are one of the pillars. However, despite their broad use throughout the bio-logical sciences, the quality of genetic data within public repositories is still not guaran-teed. Here, we curated GenBank Cytochrome-b records of Aves, a well-known taxonundergoing continuous taxonomic changes, and provide a curated database to aid taxo-nomic and conservation efforts. After curation of 54 114 records, the database represents50 280 sequences from 6867 species (63% of current bird biodiversity), with a per-genusmedian of two species (50% interquartile ranges of 1–4) and three sequences (1–9). Over-all, 4469 bird species have≥2 sequences representing 91.7% and 97.5% of currentlyknown families and orders, respectively. Weflagged 1336 erroneous records (2.5% of AvesCytochrome-b records) in need of taxonomic curation (71%) or removal, 45% of whichlack any voucher information preventing a proper taxonomic assignation. Compared withAmphibia, a group for which a similar analysis was recently published, Aves records haveafive-fold higher prevalence of errors caused by contamination, sequencing errors ordiverging mutation patterns. We provide a species-level taxonomic update for 839 Gen-Bank records, including changes at the genus (76), family (21) and order (16) levels. Sci-entific conclusions from the manuscripts that have ever used those data might becompromised. A further concern is the current availability of GenBank records previouslyidentified as erroneous in published manuscripts, demonstrating the need for improvedcommunication between NCBI and the community. We call for caution when utilizingGenBank records without curation of retrieved data, despite new improvements., This project was partially funded by a Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation grant CGL2017-89898-R (AEI/FEDER, UE) to D.R.V, Peer reviewed

Studies examining the underlying causes of the distributions of species and their future trajectories under climate change have benefitted from the accumulation of measurements of thermal tolerance across the tree of life. However, gaps in the global coverage of heat-tolerance data for ectotherms persist on four critical fronts. First, most large-scale analyses treat heat tolerance as a fixed species trait despite that population-level variation can equal or exceed cross-species variation. Second, terrestrial non-arthropod invertebrates and aquatic ectotherms other than bony fish have been poorly sampled, particularly in boreal and tropical regions, the Indian Ocean and the mesopelagic-deep ocean. Third, the study of climate impacts on the heat tolerance of
terrestrial ectotherms has often neglected the interaction of environmental temperatures with water availability. And fourth, the mechanisms driving the dependence of heat tolerance on oxygen supply-demand remain largely unknown. We contend that filling those data and knowledge gaps requires novel strategies for the ecophysiological sampling of the range of understudied populations and species that occupy the length of climatic gradients globally. Such developments are essential for comprehensively predicting species responses to climate change across aquatic and terrestrial biomes., British Ecological Society ‘Research Grant’ 4496-5470 to S.H.P., European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871081 (AQUACOSM-plus) to M.B.A, and Spanish Ministry of Science grants CGL2011-26852 to M.B.A. and S.H.P. and CGL2017-89898-R to D.R.V., Peer reviewed

Mantellid frogs present an extensive adaptive radiation endemic to Madagascar and Comoros, being the subfamily Mantellinae the most morphologically and ecologically diverse. The Mantellinae present key innovative evolutionary traits linked to their unique reproductive behavior, including the presence of femoral glands and a derived vomeronasal organ. In addition, previous studies pointed to size differentiation in playing an important role in species’ dispersal capacities and shaping of their geographic ranges. Despite the high phenotypic variation observed in this clade, to date an exhaustive morphological analysis of their anatomy has still not been performed, much less in relation to internal structures. Here, we present a comprehensive skeletal description of a mantellid species, Blommersia transmarina, from the island of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, which has potentially undergone a process of moderate gigantism compared to other Blommersia species. We describe its intraspecific skeletal variation utilizing non-destructive volume renderings from μCT-scans, and characterize the presence of sexual dimorphism and size covariation in skeletal structures. Notably, we found numerous signs of hyperossification, a novel structure for mantellids: the clavicular process, and the presence of several appendicular sesamoids. Our findings suggest that skeletal phenotypic variation in this genus may be linked to biomechanical function for reproduction and locomotion., Peer reviewed