Invasion through the amphibian trade: a comparative and unifying framework for species assignments of cryptic brown frogs

Wildlife trade drives the introduction pathway for biological invasions worldwide, a process that is hidden on alien species with undefined phenotypical variations and ecologically comparable to the native community. To confront this catastrophe issue, we designated a comparative morphometry and a barcode based-species delimitation framework that help accurately identify cryptic phenotypic species on a large-scale species assignments. We incorporated meta-analyses, comparative morphometry, species delimitation modelling and phylogeography to infer the crypticity in phenotypic and genetic among the brown frogs (Rana spp.) imported to the Republic of Korea from China under the epithet ‘R. huanrenensis’ and ‘Rana dybowskii’.