Marr, Melissa M;
Hopkins, Kevin;
Tapley, Benjamin;
Borzée, Amaël;
Liang, Zhiqiang;
Cunningham, Andrew A;
Yan, Fang;
... Turvey, Samuel T; + view all
(2024)
What's in a name? Using species delimitation to inform conservation practice for Chinese giant salamanders (Andrias spp.).
Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society
10.1093/evolinnean/kzae007.
(In press).
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Abstract
Genetically-defined biodiversity units must align with practical conservation frameworks, and most conservation is conducted at the species level. Chinese giant salamanders have traditionally been interpreted as the single widespread species Andrias davidianus, but molecular studies have reinterpreted this taxon as representing multiple allopatric clades, and competing taxonomic hypotheses support different numbers of candidate species. We conducted species delimitation analyses using tree-based models (General Mixed Yule Coalescent, Poisson Tree Processes) and alignment-based models (Bayesian Phylogenetics and Phylogeography) to interpret diversification across Andrias within a comparative systematic framework, using 30 mitogenomes representing all recognised Chinese clades. Nearly all tested models provide support for at least seven statistically-resolved Chinese species-level lineages, and most provide support for nine species. Only four species have available names. Chinese Andrias populations are Critically Endangered, but unnamed species cannot be incorporated into national or international conservation frameworks and risk being excluded from recovery efforts. We urge taxonomists and conservation practitioners to focus more attention on the world’s largest amphibians, and non-standard taxonomic approaches may be required to name these species before they disappear.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | What's in a name? Using species delimitation to inform conservation practice for Chinese giant salamanders (Andrias spp.) |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1093/evolinnean/kzae007 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1093/evolinnean/kzae007 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2024 The Linnean Society of London. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10193195 |
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