Integrative Taxonomy: Adding Methodological Approaches to Species Delimitation in the Liolaemus fitzingerii Complex

MINOLI, I.; MORANDO, M.; AVILA, L.J.

Congreso; Joint Meeting Ichthyology and Herpetology 2013; 2013

SSAR/HL/ASIH

We performed a comparative study of the species currently included in the Liolaemus fitzingerii complex (sensu Avila et al., 2006): L. fitzingerii, L. xanthoviridis and L. chehuachekenk including the recently described L. camarones and L. shehuen (Abdala et al., 2012). The objective of this study is to incorporate methodological approaches previously not used for this complex, i.e. statistical morphometric analyses and niche modeling, to evaluate their contribution to species delimitation for phylogenetically closely related species. To avoid possible morphological, ecological and geographical bias we analyzed only individuals restricted to their five type localities. We used ten continuous morphometric variables (adults differentiated by sex) and performed classical statistical analyses and lineal discriminant analysis. We also implemented niche modeling analyses using 19 environmental variables plus altitude with a resolution of 30 arc-seconds (~ 1 km). Statistical analyses were performed with R 2.15.2, niche modeling with Maxent 3.3.3k, and maps and Quantum GIS 1.8. Although most of the species showed differentiation with these analyses, L. fitzingerii occupies the same morphospace as L. camarones; linear discriminant analyses had a high error in separating L. chehuachekenk from L. shehuen, which also have overlapping environmental niches (it was not possible to model L. camarones). The results are compared and discussed in relation to their taxonomic and methodological implications.