Meeting Abstract

107.3  Sunday, Jan. 6  Limits and opportunities of diversification in barking frogs of the Craugastor augusti complex STREICHER, J.W.*; MEIK, J.M.; SMITH, E.N.; FUJITA, M.K.; Univ. of Texas, Arlington; Univ. of Texas, Arlington; Univ. of Texas, Arlington; Univ. of Texas, Arlington streicher@uta.edu

Craugastor augusti is among the most widely distributed direct-developing frogs in North America, occurring from the southwestern United States to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico. Across this distribution, C. augusti exhibits relatively low genetic diversity but extensive phenotypic variation in color patterns, integumentary characteristics, and breeding vocalizations. Furthermore, these frogs inhabit diverse habitats from deserts to tropical forests, and are the only Craugastor species to have invaded a temperate biome. These patterns are uncommon in vertebrates with low vagility such as amphibians, which often exhibit high endemism and habitat specialization. These generalist attributes make C. augusti an ideal system for investigating limits and opportunities of diversification. Here we describe preliminary phylogeographic patterns in this complex and relate them to patterns of morphological diversity. Using mitochondrial and nuclear DNAs (a total of 2064 bp) we recovered eight geographically circumscribed clades, each of which has distinctive patterns of morphological variation. We also used canonical correlation analysis and mantel tests to evaluate the importance of various bioclimatic variables as predictors of morphology, while controlling for spatial autocorrelation. We discuss these results in the context of the evolutionary history of these frogs as unique direct-developing colonizers of xeric habitats.