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Weak divergence among African, Malagasy and Seychellois hinged terrapins (Pelusios castanoides, P. subniger) and evidence for human-mediated oversea dispersal

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Abstract

Using phylogenetic and haplotype network analyses of 2036 bp of mitochondrial DNA, we compare samples of the two hinged terrapin species Pelusios castanoides and P. subniger from continental Africa, Madagascar and the Seychelles to infer their biogeography. Owing to the long independent history of Madagascar and the Seychelles, the populations from those islands should be deeply divergent from their African conspecifics. Seychellois populations of the two species are currently recognized as Critically Endangered endemic subspecies. However, even though we found within P. subniger evidence for a cryptic species from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, all other samples assigned to this species were undifferentiated. This suggests that Malagasy and Seychellois populations of P. subniger were introduced by humans and that the Seychellois subspecies P. s. parietalis is invalid. This has implications for current conservation strategies for the Critically Endangered Seychellois populations and suggests that measures should rather focus on endemic species. The situation of P. castanoides could be different. Samples from Madagascar and the Seychelles are weakly, but consistently, differentiated from continental African samples, and Malagasy and Seychellois samples are reciprocally monophyletic in maximum likelihood analyses. However, due to a lack of samples from central and northern Mozambique and Tanzania, we cannot exclude that identical continental haplotypes exist there.

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Acknowledgements

Hynek Prokop allowed sampling of some terrapins in his care. Thanks for samples from the Seychelles go to James Harris and Peter Praschag. Additional samples from Madagascar were supplied by Gerald Kuchling, Jérôme Maran and Emile Rajeriarison. Radim Blažek, Parfait Bora, Jim and Carol Patton, Theo Rajoafiarison, Roger Daniel Randrianiaina, Fanomezana Ratsoavina and Olivier Verneau helped during field work. Anja Rauh processed the samples in the laboratory.

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Supplementary Table S1

Samples and outgroups used in the present study. Sample numbers refer to vouchers in the tissue collection of the Museum of Zoology, Senckenberg Dresden, sample codes starting with letters, to the collection of the Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos (CIBIO), Porto (DOC 197 KB)

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Fritz, U., Branch, W.R., Gehring, PS. et al. Weak divergence among African, Malagasy and Seychellois hinged terrapins (Pelusios castanoides, P. subniger) and evidence for human-mediated oversea dispersal. Org Divers Evol 13, 215–224 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13127-012-0113-3

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