Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Responsive image
Issue: Vol. 4132 No. 2: 29 Jun. 2016
Type: Articles
Published: 2016-06-29
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4132.2.2
Page range: 207–220
Abstract views: 93
PDF downloaded: 1

A new species of the genus Eremias Fitzinger, 1834 (Squamata: Lacertidae) from Central Iran, supported by mtDNA sequences and morphology

Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Hakim Sabzevari University, Sabzevar, Iran
Young Researchers and Elite Club, Islamic Azad University, Shirvan Branch, Shirvan, Iran
Department of Environment, Isfahan, Iran
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Golestan University, Gorgan, Iran
Department of Biodiversity, Institute of Science and High Technology and Environmental Sciences, Graduate University of Advanced Technology,Kerman, Iran
Department of Biodiversity, Institute of Science and High Technology and Environmental Sciences, Graduate University of Advanced Technology,Kerman, Iran
Reptilia Lacertidae mtDNA Iranian Plateau Eremias isfahanica sp. nov.

Abstract

A new species of the lacertid genus Eremias Fitzinger, 1834 is described from northwest of Isfahan province, Central Iran. Two mitochondrial genes (cyt b and 12S DNA) were sequenced and analyzed as reliable molecular markers for the separation of this newly discovered species from closely related species within the genus Eremias: E. velox, E. persica, E. papenfussi, E. lalezharica, E. montana, E. strauchi, E. kopetdaghica and E. suphani. Genetic distances (K2-p) between any of these species with the newly described species are relatively high (27.5–32.8% for cyt b and 5.2–10.4% for 12S DNA). Phylogenetic analyses (MP, ML and BI) generated trees with very similar topologies. According to molecular and morphological data, Eremias isfahanica sp. nov. belongs to the subgenus Aspidorhinus, and is closely related to E. papenfussi. Because several new Eremias species have recently been described from the Iranian Plateau, we additionally provide an updated identification key.

 

References

  1. Ahmadzadeh, F., Carretero, M.A., Rödder, D., Harris, D.J., Freitas, S.N., Perera, A. & Böhme, W. (2013) Inferring the effects of past climate fluctuations on the distribution pattern of Iranolacerta (Reptilia, Lacertidae): Evidence from mitochondrial DNA and species distribution models. Zoologischer Anzeiger, 252, 141–148.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcz.2012.05.002

    Akaike, H. (1974) A new look at the statistical model identification. Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on, 19, 716–723.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TAC.1974.1100705

    Ananjeva, N., Borkin, L.Y., Darevsky, I. & Orlov, N. (1998) Encyclopedia of Russian Nature. Amphibians and Reptiles. ABF, Moscow, 574 pp.

    Anderson, S.C. (1999) The Lizards of Iran. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles Ithaca, New York, USA, pp.

    Arnold, E.N. (1989) Towards a phylogeny and biogeography of the Lacertidae: relationships within an Old-World family of lizards derived from morphology. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), 55, 209–257.

    Barabnov, A. (2009) Aspidorhinus Eichwald, 1841 as a valid subgeneric name for Eremias velox species group (Sauria, Lacertidae). Current Studies in Herpetology, 9, 59–61.

    Chirikova, M.A. (2004) Variability of Eremias velox Pallas, 1771 (Reptilia, Sauria) from Kazakhstan. Selivia, 24–34. [in Russisch]

    Fu, J. (1998) Toward the phylogeny of the family Lacertidae: Implications from mitochondrial DNA 12S and 16S gene sequences (Reptilia: Squamata). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 9, 118–130.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/mpev.1997.0456

    Fu, J. (2000) Toward the phylogeny of the family Lacertidae-Why 4708 base pairs of mtDNA sequences cannot draw the picture. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 71, 203–217.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/bijl.1999.0431

    Guo, X.G., Chen, D., Papenfuss, T.J., Ananjeva, N.B., Melnikov, D.A. & Wang, Y. (2011) Phylogeny and divergence times of some racerunner lizards (Lacertidae: Eremias) inferred from mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene segments. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 61, 400–12.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2011.06.022

    Guo, X.G., Chen, D.L., Wan, H.F. & Wang, Y.Z. (2010) Review of systematics of the racerunner lizard (Lacertidae: Eremias). Sichuan Journal of Zoology, 29, 665–672 [in Chinese with English abstract]

    Hall, T.A. (1999) BioEdit: a user-friendly biological sequence alignment editor and analysis program for Windows 95/98/NT, Nucleic acids symposium series. 41, 95–98.

    Harris, D.J., Arnold, E.N. & Thomas, R.H. (1998) Relationships of lacertid lizards (Reptilia: Lacertidae) estimated from mitochondrial DNA sequences and morphology. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 265, 1939–1948.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1998.0524

    Hosseinian Yousefkhani, S.S., Rastegar-Pouyani, N. & Rastegar-Pouyani, E. (2013) Morphological variation among populations of Mesalina watsonana (Stoliczka, 1872) (Sauria: Lacertidae) in Iran. Turkish Journal of Zoology, 37, 676–684.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.3906/zoo-1212-21

    Kabir, S., Shahriar, M., Kabir, A.H. & Uddin, M.G. (2012) High salt SDS-based method for the direct extraction of genomic DNA from three different Gram-negative organisms. The CDR Journal, 1, 1–64.

    Kapli, P., Poulakakis, N., Lymberakis, P. & Mylonas, M. (2011) A re-analysis of the molecular phylogeny of Lacertidae with currently available data. Basic Applied Herpetology, 25, 97–104.

    Kocher, T.D., Thomas, W.K., Meyer, A., Edwards, S.V., Pääbo, S., Villablanca, F.X. & Wilson, A.C. (1989) Dynamics of mitochondrial DNA evolution in animals: amplification and sequencing with conserved primers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 86, 6196–6200.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.86.16.6196

    Mayer, W. & Pavlicev, M. (2007) The phylogeny of the family Lacertidae (Reptilia) based on nuclear DNA sequences: convergent adaptations to arid habitats within the subfamily Eremiainae. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 44, 1155–1163.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2007.05.015

    Mozaffari, O., Ahmadzadeh, F. & Parham, J. (2011) Eremias papenfussi sp. nov., a new lacertid lizard (Sauria: Lacertidae) from Tehran Province, Iran. Zootaxa, 3114, 57–62.

    Posada, D. (2008) jModelTest: phylogenetic model averaging. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 25, 1253–1256.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msn083

    Rastegar-Pouyani, E.R., Noureini, S.K., Rastegar- Pouyani, N.R., Joger, U. & Wink, M. (2012) Molecular phylogeny and intraspecific differentiation of the Eremias velox complex of the Iranian Plateau and Central Asia (Sauria, Lacertidae). Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research, 50, 220–229.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0469.2012.00662.x

    Pyron, R., Burbrink, F. & Wiens, J. (2013) A phylogeny and revised classification of Squamata, including 4161 species of lizards and snakes. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 13, 93.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-13-93

    Rastegar-Pouyani, E., Avci, A., Kumlutaş, Y., Ilgaz, C. & Hosseinian Yousefkhani, S. (2013) New country record and range extension of Eremias suphani Başoğlu & Hellmich, 1968 from Iran. Amphibian & Reptile Conservation, 6, 35–39.

    Rastegar-Pouyani, E., Rastegar-Pouyani, N., Kazemi-Noureini, S., Joger, U. & Wink, M. (2010) Molecular phylogeny of the Eremias persica complex of the Iranian plateau (Reptilia: Lacertidae), based on mtDNA sequences. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 158, 641–660.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-3642.2009.00553.x

    Rastegar-Pouyani, N. & Nilson, G. (2011) A new species of Eremias (Sauria: Lacertidae) from Fars Province, South-Central Iran. Russian Journal of Herpetology, 4, 94–101.

    Rastegar-Pouyani, N. & Rastegar-Pouyani, E. (2001) A new species of Eremias (Sauria: Lacertidae) from highlands of Kermanshah Province, Western Iran. Asiatic Herpetological Research, 9, 107–112.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.5962/bhl.part.15563

    Ronquist, F., Teslenko, M., van der Mark, P., Ayres, D.L., Darling, A., Höhna, S., Larget, B., Liu, L., Suchard, M.A. & Huelsenbeck, J.P. (2012) MrBayes 3.2: efficient Bayesian phylogenetic inference and model choice across a large model space. Systematic biology, 61, 539–542.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/sys029

    Sindaco, R. & Jeremcenko, V.K. (2008) The Reptiles of the Western Palearctic. Edizioni Belvedere, Latina (Italy), 579 pp.

    Smid, J., Moravec, J., Kodym, P., Kratochvil, L., Rastegar-Pouyani, E., Hosseinian Yousefkhani, S.S. & Frynta, D. (2014) Annotated checklist and distribution of the lizards of Iran. Zootaxa, 3855 (1), 1–97.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3855.1.1

    Swofford, D.L. (2003) PAUP*. Phylogenetic Analysis Using Parsimony (and Other Methods). Version 4. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts.

    Szczerbak, N.N. (1971) Taxonomy of the genus Eremias (Sauria, Reptilia) in connection with the focuses of the desert-steppe fauna development in Palearctic. Vestnik Zoologii, 2, 48–55.

    Tamura, K., Stecher, G., Peterson, D., Filipski, A. & Kumar, S. (2013) MEGA6: molecular evolutionary genetics analysis version 6.0. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 30, 2725–2729.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/molbev/mst197

    Veith, M., Schmidtler, J., Kosuch, J., Baran, I. & Seitz, A. (2003) Palaeoclimatic changes explain Anatolian mountain frog evolution: a test for alternating vicariance and dispersal events. Molecular Ecology, 12, 185–199.
    http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-294X.2003.01714.x

    Uetz, P. & Hošek, J. (2015) The Reptile Database. Available from: http://www.reptile-database.org (Accessed 27 Jun. 2016)