Phylogeny of the tungara frog genus Engystomops (=Physalaemus pustulosus species group;: Anura: Leptodactylidae)

We present a phylogeny of the Neotropical genus Engystomops (= Physalaemus pustulosus species group) based on sequences of similar to 2.4 kb of mtDNA, (12S rRNA, valine-tRNA, and 16S rRNA) and propose a phylogenetic nomenclature. The phylogeny includes all described taxa and two unnamed species. All analyses indicate that Engystomops is rnonophyletic and contains two basal allopatric clades. Clade I (Edentulus) includes E pustulosus and the Amazonian E. petersi + E cf.freibergi. Clade II (Duovox) includes all species distributed in W Ecuador and NW Peru. Brevivox, a clade of small-sized species is strongly supported within Duovox. Populations of Engystomops pustulosus fall into two well-supported clades, each of which occupies two disjunct portions of the species range. Overall, our phylogeny is congruent with most previous hypotheses. This study is among the few published species-level phylogenies of Neotropical amphibians derived from molecular datasets. A review of the proportion of new species detected by similar Studies suggests that the increasing use of molecular techniques Will lead to the discovery of a vast number of species of Neotropical amphibians. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.