TY - JOUR

T1 - King or royal family? Testing for species boundaries in the King Cobra, Ophiophagus hannah (Cantor, 1836), using morphology and multilocus DNA analyses

AU - Gowri Shankar, P.

AU - Swamy, Priyanka

AU - Williams, Rhiannon Carys

AU - Ganesh, S.R.

AU - Moss, Matt

AU - Höglund, Jacob

AU - Das, Indraneil

AU - Sahoo, Gunanidhi

AU - Vijayakumar, S.P.

AU - Shanker, Kartik

AU - Wüster, Wolfgang

AU - Dutta, Sushil K.

PY - 2021/12

Y1 - 2021/12

N2 - In widespread species, the diverse ecological conditions in which the populations occur, and the presence of many potential geographical barriers through their range are expected to have created ample opportunities for the evolution of distinct, often cryptic lineages. In this work, we tested for species boundaries in one such widespread species, the king cobra, Ophiophagus hannah (Cantor, 1836), a tropical elapid snake distributed across the Oriental realm. Based on extensive geographical sampling across most of the range of the species, we initially tested for candidate species (CS) using Maximum-Likelihood analysis of mitochondrial genes. We then tested the resulting CS using both morphological data and sequences of three single-copy nuclear genes. We used snapclust to determine the optimal number of clusters in the nuclear dataset, and Bayesian Phylogenetics and Phylogeography (BPP) to test for likely species status. We used non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) analysis for discerning morphological separation. We recovered four independently evolving, geographically separated lineages that we consider Confirmed Candidate Species: 1) Western Ghats lineage; 2) Indo- Chinese lineage 3) Indo-Malayan lineage; 4) Luzon Island lineage, in the Philippine Archipelago. We discuss patterns of lineage divergence, particularly in the context of low morphological divergence, and the conservation implications of recognizing several endemic king cobra lineages.

AB - In widespread species, the diverse ecological conditions in which the populations occur, and the presence of many potential geographical barriers through their range are expected to have created ample opportunities for the evolution of distinct, often cryptic lineages. In this work, we tested for species boundaries in one such widespread species, the king cobra, Ophiophagus hannah (Cantor, 1836), a tropical elapid snake distributed across the Oriental realm. Based on extensive geographical sampling across most of the range of the species, we initially tested for candidate species (CS) using Maximum-Likelihood analysis of mitochondrial genes. We then tested the resulting CS using both morphological data and sequences of three single-copy nuclear genes. We used snapclust to determine the optimal number of clusters in the nuclear dataset, and Bayesian Phylogenetics and Phylogeography (BPP) to test for likely species status. We used non-metric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) analysis for discerning morphological separation. We recovered four independently evolving, geographically separated lineages that we consider Confirmed Candidate Species: 1) Western Ghats lineage; 2) Indo- Chinese lineage 3) Indo-Malayan lineage; 4) Luzon Island lineage, in the Philippine Archipelago. We discuss patterns of lineage divergence, particularly in the context of low morphological divergence, and the conservation implications of recognizing several endemic king cobra lineages.

KW - Species delimitation

KW - king cobra complex

KW - endemic

KW - Western Ghats

KW - phylogenetics

KW - phylogography

KW - taxonomy

KW - systematics

U2 - 10.1016/j.ympev.2021.107300

DO - 10.1016/j.ympev.2021.107300

M3 - Article

VL - 165

JO - Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution

JF - Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution

SN - 1055-7903

IS - 107300

M1 - 107300

ER -