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，拥有非洲之角（Horn of Africa）地区无可比拟的生物特有性水平，这一特征主要源于其活跃的地质与气候历史所造就的地形——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，这使其成为探究埃塞俄比亚复杂非生物历史对生物多样化进程影响的理想研究体系。泽蛙属（Ptychadena）的草蛙在埃塞俄比亚具有显著的物种多样性，且在此地经历了一次演化辐射事件。本研究利用分子数据与扩展的类群采样策略，对高地演化辐射类群以及两个广布的低地泽蛙属物种开展隐存多样性检测与多样化模式探究。物种界定结果显示，本数据集中共包含9个高地物种与4个低地物种；分化时间估算结果表明，地质事件与气候波动均在埃塞俄比亚泽蛙属的多样化进程中扮演了复杂且相互交织的角色。本研究对特有物种纽曼氏泽蛙（P. neumanni）物种复合体的分类学进行了修订，恢复了1个曾被正式异名处理的学名，并描述了3个新分类单元。最后，本研究还描述了2个产自埃塞俄比亚的低地泽蛙属新物种，该类群的分布范围或更为广泛。