Liolaemus lineomaculatus

Breitman, María Florencia, Morando, Mariana & Avila, Luciano Javier, 2013, Past and present taxonomy of the Liolaemus lineomaculatus section (Liolaemidae): is the morphological arrangement hypothesis valid?, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 168 (3), pp. 612-668 : 635

LIOLAEMUS LINEOMACULATUS SECTION: PAST

Lizards from the L. lineomaculatus section have been used for testing evolutionary hypotheses about past demographic changes and speciation patterns (Breit- man et al., 2011a, 2012); moreover, ecological and physiological questions have also been addressed for some species of this section ( Ibargüengoytía et al., 2010; Bonino et al., 2011; Fernández et al., 2011). Refugia and phylogeographical breaks have been proposed for Patagonia based on the molecular study of these lizards ( Breitman et al., 2012), some of which are geographically concordant with those identified in other lizard clades, rodents, flowering plants, and trees ( Sérsic et al., 2011).

Two lines of evidence have been used to evaluate the species arrangement within the L. lineomaculatus section, a traditional one based on general morphological similarities ( Cei & Scolaro, 1982b, 1983), and another one based on molecular markers analysed using phylogenetic methods ( Espinoza et al., 2004; Schulte & Moreno-Roark, 2010; Breitman et al., 2011a). Both sources of evidence have shown congruence as well as incongruence, and since the last extension of the ‘morphological arrangement hypothesis’ eight new species have been described ( Cei & Scolaro, 1996; Pincheira-Donoso & Nuñez, 2005; Abdala & Lobo, 2006; Scolaro & Cei, 2006; Núñez & Scolaro, 2009; Breitman et al., 2011b, c), but there has been neither a revision of the morphological hypothesis nor a comparison with the molecular one. Morphological as well as molecular evidence supported the L. lineomaculatus group ( Etheridge, 1995; Espinoza et al., 2004; Schulte & Moreno- Roark, 2010; Breitman et al., 2011a), and the ‘morphological arrangement hypothesis’ (but not the molecular hypothesis) supported the recognition of the L. kingii and L. archeforus groups as distinct groups ( Cei, 1979; Cei & Scolaro, 1982a, 1983; Laurent, 1983, 1985; Scolaro & Cei, 1997; Pincheira- Donoso & Núñez, 2005). The species L. magellanicus was hypothesized to be closely related to L. lineomaculatus on the basis of morphological similarities, but in the first molecular phylogenetic study of this section ( Breitman et al., 2011a, c), L. magellanicus and L. caparensis were recovered in a strongly supported clade identified as the L. magellanicus group.