Plio–Pleistocene vicariance across arid Australia in the ‘Spiny Knob-tailed Geckos’ (Nephrurus asper group), with the description of a new species from western Queensland
Paul M. Oliver
A * , Stephen C. Donnellan B and Bee F. Gunn C
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security, Griffith University, 170 Kessels Road, Brisbane, Qld 4121, and Biodiversity and Geosciences Program, Queensland Museum, South Brisbane, Qld 4101, Australia.
B South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.
C Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Birdwood Avenue, Melbourne, Vic. 3004, Australia.
Australian Journal of Zoology 69(6) 216-228 https://doi.org/10.1071/ZO22008
Submitted: 28 February 2022 Accepted: 1 July 2022 Published: 25 October 2022
© 2021 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Across Australia’s monsoon tropics and vast arid zone isolated regions or ‘islands’ of upland or rocky habitat are home to disjunct populations of many taxa of plants and animals. Comparative analyses of lineages that occur across these habitat islands provide opportunities to understand when and how environmental change drove isolation and diversification across arid Australia. Here we present an analysis of mitochondrial genetic diversity across disjunct populations of geckos in the Nephrurus asper group. Dating analyses suggest that disjunct and genetically divergent populations spanning the northern half of Australia diverged through the Plio–Pleistocene. Based on the timing of divergence and current habitat associations we hypothesise that species in this lineage were isolated by the expansion of unsuitable arid-zone habitats from the late Pliocene onwards. Across most areas, these barriers appear to be sandy or stony deserts. However, in eastern Australia genetically divergent populations are separated by grassland on flat vertisol-dominated soils (‘blacksoils’), suggesting that these habitats also expanded during the late Pliocene aridification. Finally, we show that western Queensland populations formerly referred to N. asper are genetically divergent and diagnosable on the basis of colour pattern and, herein, recognise these populations as a distinct species. https://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:9508CAAA-D014-452D-A3DA-325851615FA7
Keywords: aridification, biogeography, blacksoil, Nephrurus eromanga sp. nov, refugia, sandy deserts, stony deserts, vicariance, gecko.
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