Geographic basis of genetic variation in Platymantis corrugatus

Abstract

The species Platymantis corrugatus—part of a highly diverse, endemic radiation of frogs in the Philippine archipelago—has an improbably widespread distribution that is without precedent in Platymantis. In this study, I estimate the phylogenetic relationships among individuals from across the range of P. corrugatus using maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference with multilocus DNA sequence data and analyze male advertisement call data to determine if patterns of diversification in P. corrugatus conform to predictions made by a prevailing model of diversification in the Philippines. In light of these data, I consider if unrecognized diversity is likely to be found within this putative species complex. The data largely support the prevailing model of diversification although there are some striking deviations that have important implications regarding the process of diversification of P. corrugatus and within other Philippine herpetofauna more generally. These data also suggest that P. corrugatus is composed of four distinct lineages with unique evolutionary histories and trajectories that each warrant recognition as species. The relationships between these putatively new species reveal a wide disjunction without precedent in the Philippines between the clade from the island of Mindoro and the clade from Camiguin Norte suggesting the possibility of a history of extinction or displacement by migrants from the Luzon Mindanao clade.