Department of Biology, Northeastern Illinois University, 5500 North St., Louis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60625-4699, USA.
Department of Biological Sciences, New York City College of Technology, The City University of New York, 285 Jay Street, Brooklyn, NY 1120, USA; Biology PhD Program, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Ave., New York, NY 10016, USA.
Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2019 May;134:61-65. doi: 10.1016/j.ympev.2019.01.022. Epub 2019 Feb 1.
The Brown Vine Snake, Oxybelis aeneus, is considered a single species despite the fact its distribution covers an estimated 10% of the Earth's land surface, inhabiting a variety of ecosystems throughout North, Central, and South America and is distributed across numerous biogeographic barriers. Here we assemble a multilocus molecular dataset (i.e. cyt b, ND4, cmos, PRLR) derived from Middle American populations to examine for the first time the evolutionary history of Oxybelis and test for evidence of cryptic lineages using Bayesian and maximum likelihood criteria. Our divergence time estimates suggest that Oxybelis diverged from its sister genus, Leptophis, approximately 20.5 million years ago (Ma) during the lower-Miocene. Additionally, our phylogenetic and species delimitation results suggest O. aeneus is likely a complex of species showing relatively deep species-level divergences initiated during the Pliocene. Finally, ancestral area reconstructions suggest a Central American origin and subsequent expansion into North and South America.
褐纹锦蛇，又称绿树蟒，尽管其分布范围覆盖了地球陆地表面的约 10%，栖息在北美洲、中美洲和南美洲的各种生态系统中，并分布在众多生物地理屏障中，但仍被视为单一物种。在这里，我们组装了一个从中美洲种群中获得的多基因座分子数据集（即 cyt b、ND4、cmos、PRLR），首次检查了 Oxybelis 的进化历史，并使用贝叶斯和最大似然标准来检验隐谱系的证据。我们的分歧时间估计表明，Oxybelis 与它的姐妹属 Leptophis 在大约 2050 万年前（Ma）的下中新世分化。此外，我们的系统发育和物种划定结果表明，O. aeneus 可能是一个由物种组成的复合体，表现出相对较深的物种水平分化，始于上新世。最后，祖先区重建表明中美洲起源，随后向北美和南美洲扩张。
