Data from: The role of climatic and geological events in generating diversity in Ethiopian grass frogs (genus Ptychadena)

Ethiopia is a world biodiversity hotspot and harbours levels of biotic endemism unmatched in the Horn of Africa, largely due to topographic—and thus habitat—complexity, which results from a very active geological and climatic history. Among Ethiopian vertebrate fauna, amphibians harbour the highest levels of endemism, making amphibians a compelling system for the exploration of the impacts of Ethiopia's complex abiotic history on biotic diversification. Grass frogs of the genus Ptychadena are notably diverse in Ethiopia, where they have undergone an evolutionary radiation. We used molecular data and expanded taxon sampling to test for cryptic diversity and to explore diversification patterns in both the highland radiation and two widespread lowland Ptychadena. Species delimitation results support the presence of nine highland species and four lowland species in our dataset, and divergence dating suggests that both geologic events and climatic fluctuations played a complex and confounded role in the diversification of Ptychadena in Ethiopia. We rectify the taxonomy of the endemic P. neumanni species complex, elevating one formally synonymized name and describing three novel taxa. Finally, we describe two novel lowland Ptychadena species that occur in Ethiopia and may be more broadly distributed.

埃塞俄比亚是全球生物多样性热点地区，其生物特有性水平在非洲之角地区无出其右，这在很大程度上源于活跃的地质与气候历史所塑造的地形——进而生境——复杂性。在埃塞俄比亚的脊椎动物区系中，两栖类拥有最高的特有性水平，这使得两栖类成为探究埃塞俄比亚复杂非生物历史对生物分化影响的极具研究价值的体系。褶蛙属（Ptychadena）的草蛙类群在埃塞俄比亚物种多样性显著，且在此经历了适应性进化辐射。本研究利用分子数据与扩展的类群采样策略，检验隐存多样性，并探究高原类群辐射与两类广布低地褶蛙的分化模式。物种界定结果支持本数据集中共包含9种高原褶蛙与4种低地褶蛙；分化时间估算结果显示，地质事件与气候波动均在埃塞俄比亚褶蛙的分化过程中发挥了复杂且相互交织的作用。本研究修正了特有类群纽曼褶蛙（P. neumanni）物种复合体的分类学地位，恢复1个曾被正式异名化的学名，并描述了3个新分类单元。最后，本研究描述了2种分布于埃塞俄比亚的低地褶蛙新种，其分布范围或可更广。