Editorial Type:
Article Category: Research Article
 | 
Online Publication Date: 01 Aug 2001

Mitochondrial Phylogeny of Namib Day Geckos (Rhoptropus) Based on Cytochrome b and 16S rRNA Sequences

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Page Range: 775 – 780
DOI: 10.1643/0045-8511(2001)001[0775:MPONDG]2.0.CO;2
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Abstract

We examined phylogenetic relationships among the Namib day geckos (genus Rhoptropus) using DNA sequence data from the mitochondrial cytochrome b (cytb) and 16S ribosomal RNA genes. Maximum-parsimony analysis of the cytb, 16S, and combined (cytb/16S) datasets each recovered an identical single most-parsimonious tree, revealing two well-supported clades: (1) Rhoptropus afer + Rhoptropus bradfieldi ssp and (2) Rhoptropus boultoni + (Rhoptropus barnardi + Rhoptropus biporosus). Maximum-likelihood analysis identified the same two species groups and corroborated patterns of relationship within respective parsimony clades. Moreover, the mitochondrial DNA trees were congruent with parsimony trees derived from morphological and allozymic characters. Congruence observed among these different data offers strong evidence for our molecular phylogeny of Rhoptropus, bringing taxonomic stability to a genus whose species-level relationships were widely debated throughout the last century.

Copyright: The American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
 Fig. 1. 
 Fig. 1. 

Phylogenetic hypotheses for the genus Rhoptropus depicted by (A) majority rule consensus of three equally parsimonious trees based on 16 morphological characters and (B) strict consensus of two trees based on six allozymic characters (Bauer and Good, 1996). The combined data yield a majority rule consensus (from three trees) identical to the morphology tree. Numbers indicate proportion of 1000 bootstrap replicates supporting given nodes; paired values for tree A are bootstrap estimates for morphological (top) and combined (bottom) data.

 Fig. 2. 
 Fig. 2. 

Plots of uncorrected versus corrected (HKY85) pairwise divergences for each codon position for cytb. First position comparisons are represented by open circles, second position by triangles, and third position by squares

 Fig. 3. 
 Fig. 3. 

Single most-parsimonious tree for cytb, 16S, and combined (cytb/16S) sequence datasets for the genus Rhoptropus. Numbers above branches indicate proportion of bootstrap replicates supporting nodes for (left to right) cytb, 16S, and combined data. Values below branches are bootstrap estimates for ML analysis of the combined data

Accepted: 21 Mar 2001
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