The role of wet-zone fragmentation in shaping biodiversity patterns in peninsular India: insights from the caecilian amphibian Gegeneophis
| Title | The role of wet-zone fragmentation in shaping biodiversity patterns in peninsular India: insights from the caecilian amphibian Gegeneophis |
| Publication Type | Journal Article |
| Year of Publication | 2016 |
| Authors | Gower DJ, Agarwal I, K. Karanth P, Datta-Roy A, Giri VB, Wilkinson M, San Mauro D |
| Journal | JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pagination | 1091-1102 |
| Date Published | 06/2016 |
| Abstract | Aim Indian biodiversity is concentrated in the wet zone, which is disjunctly distributed in the north-east and in the peninsular Western and Eastern Ghats. The Eastern Ghats region is smaller and less well explored biologically and the affinities and origins of its biota poorly understood. Our aim was to assess whether divergence between east and west lineages might have been caused by fragmentation of the wet zone during Pleistocene climatic fluctuations, by Late Miocene wet-zone contraction or by more ancient events. We present the first dated phylogenetic test of these alternatives by inferring relationships and dating divergences within a wet-zone-restricted lineage endemic to the Eastern and Western Ghats. |
| DOI | 10.1111/jbi.12710 |