Chromosome banding in Amphibia. XVIII. Karyotype evolution and genomic size variation in Pleurodema (Anura, Leptodactylidae).

DNA flow cytophotometric measurements demonstrate that the quantity of nuclear DNA of the South American leptodactylid frog Pleurodema brachyops is 3.4 times greater than that of P. thaul. Nevertheless, the conventionally stained karyotypes of both species are nearly identical. In the metaphase chromosomes of P. brachyops, the chromatin has a distinctly higher degree of packaging than in those of P. thaul. C-banding reveals that almost 6 times the constitutive heterochromatin is present in the karyotype of P. brachyops than in the karyotype of P. thaul. Analysis of fluorescence banding patterns shows that the chromosomes of P. brachyops contain AT- and GC-rich heterochromatin, whereas the karyotype of P. thaul is devoid of brightly fluorescing heterochromatin. The substantial differences in the genome sizes of Pleurodema is explained by homogeneous, symmetrical changes in the amounts of all DNA sequence classes along all chromosomes, which preserved the ancestral morphology of the chromosomes.