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Genetic variation of blue-tongue skinks of the genus Tiliqua (Squamata: Scincidae) from New Guinea and Wallacea

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Abstract

Populations of blue-tongue skinks inhabiting eastern Wallacea and New Guinea are traditionally assigned to either Tiliqua gigas, which is endemic to this area, or to Tiliqua scincoides that extends its range from the Australian continent. Despite a wide morphological variation among local populations, genetic data from non-Australian populations were almost absent. We examined 128 specimens and sequenced mitochondrial ND4, 12rRNA and nuclear cmos genes. A phylogenetic analysis revealed the presence of two main clades corresponding to species Tiliqua scincoides and Tiliqua gigas. We provide the first report of Tiliqua scincoides from the Aru Island and confirm that it is genetically related to the Tanimbar populations reported as Tiliqua scincoides chimaerea. The other samples belonged to Tiliqua gigas, which also shows a distinct phylogenetic structure congruent with the geographic origin of the samples. The main split conforms to the north-south pattern of genetic variation, which was also reported in other animal species in New Guinea. (1) Samples from the northern coast of Irian Jaya, Seram, and Kai Islands belong to a distinct clade, which further splits supporting the recognition of the Tiliqua gigas keyensis subspecies. (2) Samples from the Bird’s Head and southern coast of the Irian Jaya and Halmahera Island form the other clade within Tiliqua gigas, in which the Halmahera samples formed a shallow, but clearly distinct branch. The haplotype network analysis of mitochondrial ND4 gene in Tiliqua gigas samples suggests a strong differentiation among major population groups.

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Funding

We would like to thank Tiliqua breeders and colleagues, especially Zoo Jihlava, Zoo Liberec, Zoo Dubeč, Tomáš Protiva, Anna Bauerová, Zdeněk Lerch, Michal Porteš, Petra Frýdlová, Kristýna Jachnická, Andran Abramjan, and Petra Suchomelová for providing samples and/or taking care of sampled animals. This project was supported by GAUK 754213/2016.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Viničná 7, CZ-12844, Prague 2, Czech Republic

    Daniel Frynta & Barbora Somerová

  2. Ex-situ Captive Breeding Centre, Jalan Raya Hankam no. 49, Bekasi, Indonesia

    Danny Gunalen

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  1. Daniel Frynta
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  2. Danny Gunalen
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Contributions

Designed the research (FD and GD), provided the material (GD), designed and performed the laboratory work (SB), computed the trees and statistics (SB) and wrote the paper (FD and SB).

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Correspondence to Barbora Somerová.

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In this article all applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed. No animals were killed or harmed. In this study there were used the biological samples only.

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Supplementary Information

Online resource 1

Primers used for PCR amplification and nucleotide sequencing. * Primer sources: 1 Forstner et al. (1995); 2 Stuart and Parham (2004); 3 Gardner et al. (2008b); 4 Kocher et al. (1989); 5 Saint et al. (1998) (PDF 114 kb)

Online resource 2

BA trees calculated using 1) ND4 alignment, total length 825 bp, 10,000,000 generations, 2) ND4 + 12S rRNA alignment, total length 1247 bp, 10,000,000 generations (PDF 152 kb)

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Frynta, D., Gunalen, D. & Somerová, B. Genetic variation of blue-tongue skinks of the genus Tiliqua (Squamata: Scincidae) from New Guinea and Wallacea. Biologia 76, 1445–1455 (2021). https://doi.org/10.2478/s11756-020-00646-0

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