Pseudocongruent phylogeography reflects unique responses to environmental perturbations in a biodiversity hotspot

Aim: Comparative phylogeographic studies provide important insights into the biogeographical processes shaping regional patterns of diversity. Yet, comparative studies are lacking for southern African herpetofauna, despite their high diversity. We statistically compare phylogeographic structure and divergence-time estimates among five co-distributed forest-living herpetofaunal taxa to assess rivers, climatic refugia, and climatic gradients as congruent drivers of phylogeographic diversity. Location: Maputoland-Pondoland-Albany biodiversity hotspot, Southern Africa. Taxon: herpetofauna (reptiles and amphibians). Methods: Phylogeographic structure and divergence-times within species were estimated from mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence data. Phylogeographic concordance factors were used to estimate the degree of phylogeographic congruence among sympatric localities. Full-likelihood Bayesian comparisons were used to estimate synchronous divergence between phylogeographic regions and a...