Bornschein Marcos R, Ribeiro Luiz Fernando, Teixeira Larissa, Belmonte-Lopes Ricardo, de Moraes Leonardo Amaral, Corrêa Leandro, Maurício Giovanni Nachtigall, Nadaline Júnior, Pie Marcio R
Departamento de Ciências Biológicas e Ambientais, Universidade Estadual Paulista, São Vicente, São Paulo, Brazil.
Mater Natura - Instituto de Estudos Ambientais, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil.
PeerJ. 2021 Mar 4;9:e10983. doi: 10.7717/peerj.10983. eCollection 2021.
The flea toad was recently described from southeastern and southern Brazil. In its description, the authors overlooked previous records of flea toads that had been identified as " sp. nov." and occurring in the same regions, which could suggest the possibility of up to three flea toads coexisting in southern Brazil. In addition, is characterized by substantial phenotypic variability, to an extent that compromises its current diagnosis with respect to its congener . Therefore, the current state-of-affairs regarding the geographical distribution of these two species and the identification of previously known populations is hitherto uncertain. Our goals are to reassess previous records of flea toads attributable to , and " sp. nov.", considering the description of , and to review the diagnosis of .
A critical analysis of the species identity of flea toad specimens attributable to , , or to a potentially undescribed species from southeastern and southern Brazil was based either on the analysis of morphology or on their advertisement calls. These analyses include our independent examinations of specimens and, when not possible, examinations of published descriptions. To allow for a consistent comparison of advertisement calls between and , we made recordings of both species, including in the type locality of the former.
We found that morphological and call characters originally proposed as diagnostic for in relation to vary intraspecifically. Live individuals with ventral yellow spots correspond to ; individuals without yellow spots can be either or . In preservative, they are indistinguishable. Previous records of sp. nov. correspond to . We propose that the reduced number of notes per call and the presence of only isolated notes in the call of , as opposed to a high number of notes per call with isolated notes and note groups in the call of , as the only diagnostic characters between them. Regarding their distributions and based in our assessment, only occurs in southern Brazil, without any overlap with . There is a narrow gap between the distributions of these species around the southeast of the city of São Paulo. Our revision also revealed that some records previously attributed to in Rio de Janeiro and north São Paulo represent a distinct, unidentified flea toad that is not . Both species occur side by side in Corcovado, São Paulo, a locality from where five paratypes of were obtained. Biogeographic events that might have led to vicariance between and are discussed.
跳蚤蟾蜍最近在巴西东南部和南部被描述。在其描述中，作者忽略了之前被鉴定为“新物种”且出现在相同区域的跳蚤蟾蜍记录，这可能表明在巴西南部最多有三种跳蚤蟾蜍共存。此外，其特征是具有显著的表型变异性，在一定程度上影响了其目前与同属物种的鉴别。因此，这两个物种的地理分布现状以及对先前已知种群的鉴定目前尚不确定。我们的目标是根据对该物种的描述，重新评估可归因于该物种、该物种和“新物种”的跳蚤蟾蜍先前记录，并审查该物种的鉴别。
对可归因于该物种、该物种或来自巴西东南部和南部潜在未描述物种的跳蚤蟾蜍标本的物种身份进行批判性分析，要么基于形态学分析，要么基于它们的求偶鸣叫。这些分析包括我们对标本的独立检查，以及在不可能的情况下对已发表描述的检查。为了能够对该物种和该物种的求偶鸣叫进行一致比较，我们录制了这两个物种的声音，包括在前者的模式产地。
我们发现，最初被提议作为该物种与该物种鉴别特征的形态和鸣叫特征在种内存在差异。腹部有黄色斑点的活体个体对应于该物种；没有黄色斑点的个体可能是该物种或该物种。在保存状态下，它们无法区分。先前新物种的记录对应于该物种。我们提议，每次鸣叫的音符数量减少以及该物种鸣叫中仅存在孤立音符，与该物种每次鸣叫中有大量音符且存在孤立音符和音符组形成对比，作为它们之间唯一的鉴别特征。关于它们的分布，并基于我们的评估，只有该物种出现在巴西南部，与该物种没有任何重叠。在圣保罗市东南部周围，这些物种的分布之间存在一个狭窄的间隙。我们的修订还表明，先前在里约热内卢和圣保罗北部归因于该物种的一些记录代表了一种独特的、未鉴定的跳蚤蟾蜍，不是该物种。这两个物种在圣保罗的科尔科瓦多并肩出现，从那里获得了该物种的五个副模式标本。讨论了可能导致该物种和该物种之间地理隔离的生物地理事件。
