Filogenia e sistemática dos lagartos da família Alopoglosside (Squamata: Gymnophthalmoidea) baseada na análise combinada de sequências de DNA e morfologia

Abstract

Alopoglossidae is a family of Neotropical lizards composed of 22 species allocated in two genera (Alopoglossus and Ptychoglossus). There is a lack of knowledge about the phylogenetic relationships and systematics of this family. Published phylogenies that include alopoglossid species had the objective to generate a hypothesis of the relationships on major groups (i.e., Gymnophthalmoidea), therefore they have very low taxon coverage within the family, and are usually based on limited character sampling. Considering these limitations, this thesis aimed to infer the phylogenetic relationship of Alopoglossidae—including all species in the family—based on combined analyses of DNA sequences and morphological characters. The genes used were the mitochondrial (12S, 16S and ND4), the nuclear (C-mos) and a matrix of 143 phenotypic characters from scutelation, tongue morphology, hemipenis morphology, and osteology. The data was analyzed by Maximum Parsimony optimality criteria, performing three alternative weighting schemes under Extended Implied Weighting and an equal weighting search. The generated topologies were compared in a sensitivity analysis. The preferred topology shows the paraphyly of the Ptychoglossus genera. Ptychoglossus vallensis and Ptychoglossus billineatus nearly related to the Alopoglossus clade, the Central American species Ptychoglossus plicatus and Ptychoglossus myersi as the sister clade of Ptychoglossus and Alopoglossus, and last Ptychoglossus danieli and Ptychoglossus kugleri were recovered as the sister group of all others alopoglossids. In consequence, was decided that Ptychoglossus is a junior synonym of Alopoglossus. Also, it is described the more recently discovered Alopoglossus species, from the pacific region of Colombia. The paper was already published at South American Journal of Herpetology (IF 0.837, Qualis = B2).