The amphibian genus Telmatobius is a diverse group of species that inhabits the Andes. This study analysed the phylogenetic relationships of 19 specie

One of the most characteristic and abundant amphibian taxa of South American temperate forests is Eupsophus. The ten currently recognized species of the genus have been divided in two species groups, roseus and vertebralis, but most of them, eight, belong to the roseus group. Recent phylogeographic and phylogenetic studies have suggested that species diversity of the roseus group could be underestimated. An examination of the literature shows that species of the roseus group exhibit high levels of variation in their external characteristics, particularly those used as diagnostic characters, which compromises their taxonomy and hinders their field recognition. High levels of variation were also observed in several new populations of the roseus group discovered in southern Chile (36°-40°S), which could not be identified to the species level by their external characteristics. On the other hand, the literature reveals a scarse karyotype differentiation and a high bioacoustic uniformity among the species of the roseus group. We performed a Bayesian phylogenetic analysis using mitochondrial and nuclear genes to reevaluate the species diversity of the roseus group, including all the nominal species of Eupsophus and new populations. This analysis was complemented with three species delimitation approaches, General Mixed Yule Coalescent, multi-rate Poisson Tree Process and Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery. We favored a conservative delimitation of only four species for the roseus group, a result more consistent with the distribution of pairwise genetic distances, and the available chromosome and bioacoustic evidence. The four recognized lineages, which have nearly completely allopatric distributions, are named after the earliest nominal species that they include, but because high levels of phenotypic variation, they are not diagnosable by consistent differences in external morphology. We discuss the implications of this new proposal for the taxonomy and conservation of the genus, and the possible causes of the difficulty to estimate its species diversity.

Most Chilean amphibians belong to the subfamily Telmatobiinae (Anura, Leptodactylidae). Several phylogenetic studies of Leptodactylidae and Telmatobiinae, based principally on morphological characters, have implicitly suggested closer relationships of some species of the Telmatobiinae with members of other subfamilies of leptodactylids, including the leptodactyline genus Pleurodema which is present in Chile. Furthermore, a growing number of molecular studies suggest a non monophyletic status for Telmatobiinae, although none of these studies have investigated the phylogenetic relationships of this subfamily. We compared partial sequences of the ribosomal mitochondrial genes 12S and 16S to determine the phylogenetic relationships of Chilean leptodactylids and its position within the modern anurans (Neobatrachia). We included 22 species from nine of the 10 genera of telmatobiines present in Chile (Alsodes, Atelognathus, Batrachyla, Caudiverbera, Eupsophus, Hylorina, Insuetophrynus, Telmatobufo and Telmatobius), two species of the genus Pleurodema, and one species of Rhinodermatidae, which is considered a leptodactylid derivative family by some authors. We also included 51 species representing most of the families that compose Neobatrachia. Phylogenetic reconstructions were performed using the methods of maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference. The topologies obtained in all the analyses indicate that Telmatobiinae is a polyphyletic assemblage, composed by species belonging to Hyloidea (most of the genera) and species more related to Australasian taxa (the clade Caudiverbera + Telmatobufo, defined as the tribe Calyptocephalellini). These molecular data support groups based on other kinds of evidence (Caudiverbera + Telmatobufo, Alsodes + Eupsophus and Batrachyla + Hylorina) and raise new phylogenetic hypotheses for several genera of telmatobiines (Atelognathus with Batrachyla and Hylorina, Insuetophrynus + Rhinoderma). The phylogenetic relationships recovered in this study suggest a multiple origin for Chilean temperate forest frogs and reveal an unexpected level of taxonomic diversity and evolutionary divergence among Chilean leptodactylids

High Andean environments of central Chile (32°–38°S) are inhabited by several endemic species of the genusAlsodes. Two of them,A.pehuencheandA.hugoi, have geographic distributions restricted to their type locality and surroundings. The Chilean government classifiesA.pehuencheas Critically Endangered (like the IUCN) andA.hugoias Vulnerable. In this study we report 16 new localities ofAlsodes, corresponding to first order streams, located in the Andes of Chile between 35°58’ and 36°32’S (1800–2470 m). In some of these sites, adults and juveniles morphologically similar toA.pehuencheandA.hugoiwere observed, as well as specimens ofAlsodesthat could not be identified by their external morphology. A Bayesian phylogenetic analysis with mitochondrial sequences (cytochrome b) was performed to identify the new populations to species level. All populations around 36°S belong toA.pehuenche, while most of those located south of that area would beA.hugoi. The exception is Cajón de Plaza (36°23’S), where specimens with sequences ofA.hugoiorA.pehuenchecoexist, whose taxonomic status could not be determined. These findings imply not only a westward range extension ofA.pehuenchein Chile of about 14.5 km and ofA.hugoiabout 100 km southward, but also that practically all the first order streams of the Andes of central Chile would be inhabited by populations ofAlsodes. Both results demonstrate the scarce biogeographic knowledge of the genus in the Andes, which has important implications for its conservation at local and species levels.

The southern part of the Altiplano of the Andes Range is characterized by a complex hydrography, due to an intense geologic activity and the effects of the Pleistocene glaciations. This has produced a high degree of diversity at the species level in some aquatic taxa (e.g., fish and amphibians), which suggests that these same processes have produced divergence at the intraspecific level in co-distributed taxa. We investigated the genetic variation in populations of the anuran Rhinella spinulosa which represent its entire distribution in the extreme north of Chile (17°44′S-23°47′S). Haplotype networks of the mitochondrial control region recognized two main lineages, one of which is distributed from the northern boundary of Chile to the Salar de Alconcha and the other from the Salar de Carcote to the locality of Tilomonte. The northern lineage showed little phylogeographic structure; a few very frequent haplotypes are widely distributed. The southern lineage had greater structure, due principally to the high divergence of the populations from the eastern springs of the Salar de Atacama. Fu's Fs test and the mismatch distributions suggested that most of the populations of both lineages are in the process of demographic expansion. The spatial distribution of the genetic variability was correlated with the hydrography and the paleoclimatological data available for the region, which suggested that geographic expansions followed by periods of contraction of population ranges, together with sporadic floods may explain the observed phylogeographic patterns.