Department of General Zoology and Neurobiology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2010 Jul;56(1):327-35. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2010.02.002. Epub 2010 Feb 6.
The genus Lygodactylus is a group of small, diurnal geckos distributed mainly in Africa and Madagascar. A closely related, monotypic genus is Microscalabotes from Madagascar. We examined fragments of two moderate- to slow-evolving nuclear genes (RAG-1, RAG-2) and of two fast-evolving mitochondrial genes (16SrRNA, cytochrome b) to estimate phylogenetic relationships among 28 (of about 60) species (including Microscalabotes). Since cytochrome b provided little resolution for analysis of interspecific relationships in Lygodactylus, it was excluded from the concatenated Bayesian analysis. Our well-resolved Bayesian inference tree and its resulting clades confirm many previously suggested relationships among dwarf geckos based mainly on morphological characters, while several novel relationships lead us to regroup some species and to synonymize the genus Microscalabotes with the genus Lygodactylus. Our phylogenetic analysis well supports the monophyly of Lygodactylus (including Microscalabotes). However, it rejects monophyly of the Madagascan Lygodactylus. On the other hand, the data do not reject monophyly of the African forms. Though Africa is currently the main centre of diversity of Lygodactylus, our data suggest that the most parsimonious scenario would be a Madagascan origin, one dispersal to Africa, and one back to Madagascar.
丽趾虎属是一个主要分布在非洲和马达加斯加的小型日行壁虎属。与之密切相关的单种属是马达加斯加的 Microscalabotes。我们研究了两个中等至缓慢进化的核基因（RAG-1、RAG-2）和两个快速进化的线粒体基因（16SrRNA、细胞色素 b）的片段，以估计 28 种（约 60 种）物种（包括 Microscalabotes）之间的系统发育关系。由于细胞色素 b 在分析丽趾虎属的种间关系时分辨率较低，因此将其排除在连锁贝叶斯分析之外。我们得到的分辨率良好的贝叶斯推断树及其结果分支很好地证实了许多以前基于形态特征提出的关于矮壁虎的关系，而一些新的关系使我们重新组合了一些物种，并将 Microscalabotes 属与 Lygodactylus 属同义。我们的系统发育分析很好地支持了 Lygodactylus（包括 Microscalabotes）的单系性。然而，它拒绝了马达加斯加丽趾虎属的单系性。另一方面，数据不拒绝非洲丽趾虎属的单系性。尽管非洲目前是丽趾虎属多样性的主要中心，但我们的数据表明，最简约的情景是马达加斯加起源，一次向非洲的扩散，以及一次返回马达加斯加。
