A Preliminary Study of Phylogenetic Relationships and Taxonomic Problems of Vietnamese Rhacophorus (Anura: Rhacophoridae)

Thien Tao Nguyen, Masafumi Matsui, Koshiro Eto, Nikolai Orlov

Abstract


We investigated the phylogenetic relationships among species of Vietnamese tree frogs in the genus Rhacophorus and their allies from China and Malaysia based on 434-bp partial sequences of the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene. Rhacophorus forms a monophyletic group containing two clades, within each of which the phylogenetic relationships are unresolved. Rhacophorus robertingeri is closer to R. orlovi than to R. calcaneus. Rhacophorus exechopygus and R. annamensis are sister species, while R. vampyrus is very remote from all other species studied. Rhacophorus duboisi forms a substantially supported clade with R. puerensis and is considered a member of the R. dugritei group. Rhacophorus pingbianensis is very close to R. omeimontis, whereas R. rhodopus is not monophyletic, with Yunnan samples not conspecific with R. rhodopus from Vietnam, but are possibly conspecific with Malaysian R. bipunctatus. Further studies both from morphology and molecular phylogeny based on many samples from their whole distribution range are necessary.

Keywords


Rhacophorus; biogeography; classification; Vietnamese tree frogs; phylogeny

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References


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DOI: https://doi.org/10.30906/1026-2296-2014-21-4-274-280

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