Search

Altered environments in urban areas are known to impact and change animal behaviour. In particular, artificial light at night (ALAN) affects behaviour across taxonomic groups, including reptiles. Geckos in the genus Phelsuma are predominantly diurnal, but some have been documented to alter their foraging behaviour from a diurnal to nocturnal activity period when they have access to artificial light sources. Herein, we report new observations of six Phelsuma spp. (Andaman day geckos, P. andamanensis; blue‐tailed day geckos, P. cepediana; Madagascar giant day geckos, P. grandis; Réunion ornate day geckos, P. inexpectata; gold dust day geckos, P. laticauda; Mahé day geckos, P. sundbergi longinsulae) using artificial lights to engage in nocturnal activity that includes foraging, courtship, and agonistic behaviour. Artificial light at night augments the amount of time predators, especially visual predators, can spend foraging. This can increase their overall daily activity period (i.e. the amount of time spent active within 24 h), and research is yet to fully understand the cost–benefit trade‐offs this altered behaviour has on individual fitness. Overall, our novel accounts of six Phelsuma spp. contribute to knowledge regarding the diversity of animals that have altered their behaviour in response to ALAN and highlight the behavioural flexibility of this group of geckos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phelsuma guttata and Paroedura gracilis are two species of geckos endemic to lowland and mid-elevation rainforests of the northern half of Madagascar's rainforest band. To test for concordant phylogeographic patterns in the two species and to assess intraspecific phylogeny and genetic diversity, we sequenced DNA from two mitochondrial genes (16S and ND4) and three nuclear genes (CMOS, PDC, RAG1). The mtDNA trees of both species suggest a strong phylogeographic split between phylogroups from the North East and Northern Central East biogeographic regions of Madagascar. However, this pattern is not mirrored in the nuclear gene dataset, where common alleles can be found across the two biogeographic regions. Private alleles characterize some of the northernmost and southernmost populations, especially the Montagne d'Ambre population of P. gracilis. In this species the two main mitochondrial clades agree with two distinct dorsal colour pattern phenotypes - striped versus cross-banded - separated at the junction of North East and Northern Central East. As no obvious geographic barrier to gene flow is apparent, the observed concordant phylogeographic pattern indicates that the border between these two regions might represent an area of secondary contact after divergence in refugia. Both nuclear and mitochondrial DNA reveal a higher genetic divergence among lineages of P. gracilis as compared to Ph. guttata, calling for a more detailed taxonomic assessment of the former species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Multigene phylogeny of 56 Lygodactylus species reveals four well supported clades. • TIME calibrated analysis indicates multiple dispersal events between Madagascar and Continental Africa. • Morphological characters fail to reflect molecular phylogenetic results. • 15 New potential candidate sub-/species unveiled by this study double the number of undescribed Lygodactylus species. The 71 currently known species of dwarf geckos of the genus Lygodactylus are a clade of biogeographic interest due to their occurrence in continental Africa, Madagascar, and South America. Furthermore, because many species are morphologically cryptic, our knowledge of species-level diversity within this genus is incomplete, as indicated by numerous unnamed genetic lineages revealed in previous molecular studies. Here we provide an extensive multigene phylogeny covering 56 of the named Lygodactylus species, four named subspecies, and 34 candidate species of which 19 are newly identified in this study. Phylogenetic analyses, based on ∼10.1 kbp concatenated sequences of eight nuclear-encoded and five mitochondrial gene fragments, confirm the monophyly of 14 Lygodactylus species groups, arranged in four major clades. We recover two clades splitting from basal nodes, one comprising exclusively Malagasy species groups, and the other containing three clades. In the latter, there is a clade with only Madagascar species, which is followed by a clade containing three African and one South American species groups, and its sister clade containing six African and two Malagasy species groups. Relationships among species groups within these latter clades remain weakly supported. We reconstruct a Lygodactylus timetree based on a novel fossil-dated phylotranscriptomic tree of squamates, in which we included data from two newly sequenced Lygodactylus transcriptomes. We estimate the crown diversification of Lygodactylus started at 46 mya, and the dispersal of Lygodactylus among the main landmasses in the Oligocene and Miocene, 35–22 mya, but emphasize the wide confidence intervals of these estimates. The phylogeny suggests an initial out-of-Madagascar dispersal as most parsimonious, but accounting for poorly resolved nodes, an out-of-Africa scenario may only require one extra dispersal step. More accurate inferences into the biogeographic history of these geckos will likely require broader sampling of related genera and phylogenomic approaches to provide better topological support. A survey of morphological characters revealed that most of the major clades and species groups within Lygodactylus cannot be unambiguously characterized by external morphology alone, neither by unique character states nor by a diagnostic combination of character states. Thus, any future taxonomic work will likely benefit from integrative, phylogenomic approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]