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Gene trees, species and species trees in the Ctenosaura palearis clade

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Abstract

The growing use of molecular systematics in conservation has increased the importance of accurate resolution of taxonomic units and relationships. DNA data relate most directly to genealogies, which need not have perfect relationships with species limits and phylogenies. We used a multilocus gene tree approach to elucidate the relationships between four endangered Central American iguanas. We found support for the proposition that the described species taxa correspond to distinct evolutionary lineages warranting individual protection. We combined gene trees to estimate a phylogeny using Bayesian Estimation of Species Trees (BEST), minimizing deep coalescence, Species Trees from Average Ranks (STAR), and traditional concatenation. The estimate from concatenation conflicted with the other methods, likely owing to the disproportionate effect of mtDNA on concatenated analyses. This illustrates the importance of appropriate treatment of multilocus sequence data in phylogenetics. Our results indicate that these species have gone through recent and rapid speciation, resulting in four closely related narrow-range endemics.

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Acknowledgements

This study would not have been possible without the help of many dedicated volunteers: Dennis Baulechner, Edoardo Antunez Pineda, Gilberto Salazar, Paola Coti, Daniel Ariano, Corey Shaffer, Jeff Liechty, Wendy Naira, Melissa Issis Medina, Sammy Nuñez, Hadas Grushka, and Jeffery Corneil, many thoughtful discussions with John Iverson, James Fordyce and Sally Horn, C. Hulsey for the image of Central America used in Fig. 1, The Bay Island Foundation (formally the Iguana Research and Breeding Station) and its incredibly helpful staff, Organización Zootropic, the Overseas Research Station on Roatan and David Evans, the Cayos Cochinos Foundation, the many offices of AFE-COHDEFOR and CONAP, the multitude of local residents and guides, and grants to SAP from Sigma Xi and the International Iguana Foundation, and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. All procedures were approved by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

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  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996, USA

    Stesha A. Pasachnik, Arthur C. Echternacht & Benjamin M. Fitzpatrick

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  1. Stesha A. Pasachnik
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  2. Arthur C. Echternacht
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Correspondence to Stesha A. Pasachnik.

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Pasachnik, S.A., Echternacht, A.C. & Fitzpatrick, B.M. Gene trees, species and species trees in the Ctenosaura palearis clade. Conserv Genet 11, 1767–1781 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-010-0070-3

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