Oliver Paul M, McDonald Peter J
Division of Evolution, Ecology and Genetics, Research School of Biology and Centre for Biodiversity Analysis , The Australian National University , Building 116, Daley Road, Acton, Australian Capital Territory 2601 , Australia.
Flora and Fauna Division , Department of Land Resource Management , Alice Springs, Northern Territory 0870 , Australia.
R Soc Open Sci. 2016 Oct 5;3(10):160018. doi: 10.1098/rsos.160018. eCollection 2016 Oct.
Climatic change, and in particular aridification, has played a dominant role in shaping Southern Hemisphere biotas since the mid-Neogene. In Australia, ancient and geologically stable ranges within the vast arid zone have functioned as refugia for populations of mesic taxa extirpated from surrounding areas, yet the extent to which relicts may be linked to major aridification events before or after the Pliocene has not been examined in detail. Here we use molecular phylogenetic and morphological data to show that isolated populations of saxicoline geckos in the genus from the Australian Central Uplands, formerly confounded as a single taxon, actually comprise two divergent species with contrasting histories of isolation. The recently resurrected has close relatives occurring elsewhere in the Australian arid biomes with estimated divergence dates concentrated in the early Pliocene. A new taxon (described herein) diverged from all extant much earlier, well before the end of the Miocene. A review of data for Central Uplands endemic vertebrates shows that for most (including ), gene flow with other parts of Australia probably occurred until at least the very late Miocene or Pliocene. There are, however, a small number of palaeoendemic taxa-often ecologically specialized forms-that show evidence of having persisted since earlier intensification of aridity in the late Miocene.
自中新世中期以来，气候变化，尤其是干旱化，在塑造南半球生物群方面发挥了主导作用。在澳大利亚，广袤干旱区内古老且地质稳定的山脉成为了周边地区绝迹的中生类群种群的避难所，然而，这些遗迹与上新世之前或之后的主要干旱化事件的关联程度尚未得到详细研究。在此，我们利用分子系统发育和形态学数据表明，来自澳大利亚中部高地的岩栖壁虎属的孤立种群，以前被混淆为一个单一分类单元，实际上包含两个具有不同隔离历史的不同物种。最近复活的物种在澳大利亚干旱生物群落的其他地方有近亲，估计分歧日期集中在上新世早期。一个新的分类单元（本文所述）在更早的时候，即在中新世末期之前很久，就与所有现存物种分化了。对澳大利亚中部高地特有脊椎动物的数据审查表明，对于大多数物种（包括该物种）来说，与澳大利亚其他地区的基因流动可能至少一直持续到中新世晚期或上新世晚期。然而，有少数古特有类群——通常是生态特化的形式——显示出自中新世晚期干旱加剧以来一直存在的证据。
