Doan Tiffany M, Mason Andrew J, Castoe Todd A, Sasa Mahmood, Parkinson Christopher L
Department of Biology, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd, Orlando, FL 32816, USA.; Email:
Department of Biology, 501 S. Nedderman Drive, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019, USA.; Email: unknown.
Zootaxa. 2016 Jul 15;4138(2):271-90. doi: 10.11646/zootaxa.4138.2.3.
Middle America is one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, harboring an exceptional number of rare and endemic species. This is especially true of Middle American cloud forests, where montane specialists occupy restricted, high-elevation ranges making them attractive candidates for investigating historical biogeography and speciation. One such highland-restricted species, the black speckled palm-pitviper (Bothriechis nigroviridis), occupies the Central, Tilarán, and Talamanca Cordilleras in Costa Rica and Panama. In this study, we investigate the genetic and morphological variation among populations of B. nigroviridis by inferring a multilocus phylogeny (21 individuals) and analyzing meristic scale characters with a principal component analysis (64 individuals). We find B. nigroviridis sensu stricto to be composed of two deeply divergent lineages, one with a restricted range in the northern and central Cordillera Talamanca and the other ranging throughout the Central, Tilarán, and Talamanca Cordilleras. Furthermore, these two lineages are morphologically distinct, with previously unrecognized differences in several characters allowing us to name and diagnose a new species B. nubestris sp. nov. We also examine the genetic and morphological variation within B. nigroviridis and discuss biogeographic hypotheses that may have led to the diversification of Bothriechis lineages.
中美洲是世界上生物多样性最丰富的地区之一，拥有数量异常众多的珍稀和特有物种。中美洲云雾森林尤其如此，山地特有物种占据着有限的高海拔区域，这使它们成为研究历史生物地理学和物种形成的理想对象。一种这样的高地受限物种，黑斑棕榈蝰（Bothriechis nigroviridis），分布在哥斯达黎加和巴拿马的中央山脉、蒂拉兰山脉和塔拉曼卡山脉。在本研究中，我们通过推断多位点系统发育（21个个体）并利用主成分分析（64个个体）分析可数鳞片特征，来研究黑斑棕榈蝰种群间的遗传和形态变异。我们发现狭义的黑斑棕榈蝰由两个深度分化的谱系组成，一个在塔拉曼卡山脉北部和中部的有限范围内分布，另一个分布在整个中央山脉、蒂拉兰山脉和塔拉曼卡山脉。此外，这两个谱系在形态上有明显差异，在几个特征上存在以前未被认识到的差异，这使我们能够命名并描述一个新物种——云雾棕榈蝰（Bothriechis nubestris sp. nov.）。我们还研究了黑斑棕榈蝰内部的遗传和形态变异，并讨论了可能导致棕榈蝰谱系多样化的生物地理学假说。
