CANNATELLA, D.C.; Univ. Texas, Austin: An Integrated Analysis of Datasets for the Phylogeny of Frogs.

Relationships among the major lineages of frogs are in a state of flux. Recent analyses of larval morphological characters have yielded results somewhat incongruent with those from analyses of adult morphology and DNA sequences. Frogs of the clade Pipoidea are one possible source of incongruence among basal clades of anurans. As adults, these frogs have a suite of highly apomorphic morphological characters, but in contrast, the larvae have many features judged to be plesiomorphic. This apparent discordance has at times confounded phylogenetic analyses. A second possible source are some relatively depauperate taxa (e.g., Ascaphus and Leiopelma) that are morphologically plesiomorphic, but sit at the ends of relatively long branches of the tree. This study integrates data from larval morphology, adult morphogy, and DNA sequences, and also examines the levels of incongruence among these data partitions. The results of this analysis will be discussed in the context of (1) recently published papers treating the role of morphology (and more generally, phenotypic characters) in phylogenetic analysis, and (2) community efforts to estimate a phylogeny of amphibians.