Western Palearctic water frogs
Peter Beerli
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close boxIntroduction
The western palearctic water frogs are a group of frogs which are mostly water-bound and commonly found in ponds and rivers throughout Europe, northern Africa and the western parts of Asia.
Discussion of Phylogenetic Relationships
The systematics of this groups is complicated by common hybrids (see on water frog home page: hybrids). Because morphological characters are not very discriminating between species, most populations were lumped into one taxon Rana ridibunda. With the use of molecular methods the number of species increased strongly, and most new species are removed from this heterogenous taxon. The shown phylogeny has still uncertainties about positions of some clades, because there exists more than one most parsimonious tree. An alternative view gives the following tree (using 31 electrophoretic loci and the program CONTML of the PHYLIP package of Joe Felsenstein). The trees does not include Rana terentievi, because we had no samples of it, but looking through its description we believe that it must be a sister taxon to the ridibunda clade.
Distribution
Western Palearctic water frogs are very common throughout of Europe, the Middle East. The probably most southern populations are found in Jemen, the most eastern in Tadschijkistan or even western China, the most northern population are found in southern Sweden.
References
Beerli, P. 1994. Genetic isolation and calibration of an average protein clock in western Palearctic water frogs of the Aegean region. Thesis Universität Zürich.
[There are still copies available, send a request to beerli@genetics.washington.edu]
Beerli, P., H. Hotz, and T. Uzzell. 1996. Geologically dated sea barriers calibrate an average protein clock in water frogs of the Aegean region. Evolution 50(4):1676-1687.
Information on the Internet
Peter Beerli's Water Frog Info-PoolTitle Illustrations
| Scientific Name | Rana lessonae |
|---|---|
| Comments | Group of calling males |
| Specimen Condition | Live Specimen |
| Sex | Male |
| Copyright | © 1995 Thomas Uzzell |
About This Page
Peter Beerli
Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA
Page copyright © 1995 Peter Beerli
All Rights Reserved.
Citing this page:
Beerli, Peter. 1995. Western Palearctic water frogs. Version 01 January 1995 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/Western_Palearctic_water_frogs/17479/1995.01.01 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/
