Delineating Microhyla ornata (Anura, Microhylidae): mitochondrial DNA barcodes resolve century-old taxonomic misidentification

Sonali Garg; Abhijit Das; Rachunliu G Kamei; S D Biju

doi:10.1080/23802359.2018.1501286

Delineating Microhyla ornata (Anura, Microhylidae): mitochondrial DNA barcodes resolve century-old taxonomic misidentification

Mitochondrial DNA B Resour. 2018 Aug 9;3(2):856-861. doi: 10.1080/23802359.2018.1501286.

Authors

Sonali Garg¹, Abhijit Das², Rachunliu G Kamei^{1

3}, S D Biju¹

Affiliations

¹ Systematics Lab, Department of Environmental Studies, University of Delhi, Delhi, India.
² Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, India.
³ Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London, UK.

Abstract

Microhyla ornata, a species originally described from the southwest coast of India in 1841, was long reported to be wide-ranging throughout South, Southeast, and East Asia. Although the name M. ornata is restricted to populations from South Asia, the species is still considered to occur widely in India and its neighboring regions. To clarify the identity and geographical distribution of M. 'ornata', we performed DNA barcoding using a fragment of the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene from 62 newly obtained samples. Our results show that this taxon is restricted to Peninsular India and Sri Lanka, whereas, populations from the other parts represent three different species - M. mukhlesuri, M. mymensinghensis, and M. nilphamariensis, creating new country records for India. Our work reemphasizes the benefits of DNA barcoding for rapidly identifying populations of widespread species and provides insights into the patterns of genetic differentiation in the M. 'ornata' species complex of South Asia.

Keywords: 16S; DNA barcoding; cryptic species; haplotype network; species distribution.