Meeting Abstract

116.7  Tuesday, Jan. 7 11:45  Diversity and biogeography of the frog genus Hylarana in sub-Saharan Africa JONGSMA, GFM; BLACKBURN, DC*; California Academy of Sciences; San Francisco State University gregor.jongsma@gmail.com

The evolution and diversity of many African frogs remain incompletely explored. We focus on the frog genus Hylarana (family Ranidae) that is diverse in both sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia. In Africa, these species occur in a range of habitats, span multiple biogeographic barriers, and are expected to contain cryptic diversity. Based on recent sampling of many populations across Africa, we are using phylogenetic analyses based on one mitochrondrial locus (ribosomal 16S) as a first-pass for estimating species-level diversity. This reveals a number of cryptic lineages that may correspond to undescribed species, especially in Central Africa. In addition, for each described or candidate species, we sampled additional nuclear coding loci to infer species-level relationships among African Hylarana species. We will discuss progress to date in delimiting cryptic species diversity and inferring large-scale biogeographic patterns.