Cryptic diversity and phylogeographic patterns of Mediodactylus species in the Eastern Mediterranean region

Cryptic diversity poses a great obstacle in the attempts to assess the current biodiversity crisis and may hamper conservation efforts. The gekkonid genus Mediodactylus, a well known case of hidden species and genetic diversity, has been taxonomically reclassified several times during the last decade. Focusing on the Mediterannean populations, five distinct species were recognized recently, within the previously called M. kotschyi species complex, some of these species are endemic and some are possibly threatened, yet their relationships have not been fully resolved. In this project, we generated genome wide SNPs, using ddRADseq and we applied molecular species delimitation approaches as well as population genomic analyses to further disentangle these relationships. This extensive nuclear dataset, enabled us to resolve previously obscure phylogenetic relationships among the five Mediodactylus species and support the hypothesis that the taxon includes several new, undescribed species.