Discordant morphological and genetic pattern in Leptobrachium hendricksoni (Anura: Megophryidae) from southern Thailand, revealed by non-parametric ANOVA with Monte Carlo simulations

Abstract

In this study, we analysed patterns of intraspecific structuring between populations of Leptobrachium hendricksoni from southern Thailand using qualitative and quantitative morphological characters. Furthermore, we compared the phenotypic divergence with neutral genetic variation based on the concatenated mtDNA 12S, 16S and ND4 sequences (2,452bp). Nonparametric ANOVA analyses in combination with Monte Carlo simulations and Chi-square test for qualitative characters, showed differences in phenotypical variation between populations of L. hendricksoni from southern Thailand. UPGMA clustering based on size-and-shape variation and size variation, and simulations under scenario where each population was represented by 100 individuals (structuring in consensus tree p = 0.5), yielded a similar pattern of population distribution. Our results highlight the role of ecological mechanisms of adaptation to local habitat types and climate conditions as a driving force affecting the distribution of morphological characters within L. hendricksoni rather than genetic differentiation due to random drift and/or genetic flow.

Keywords

• megophryidae
• southern thailand
• morphometric analyses
• np-anova
• monte carlo simulations