Short Communication Molecular phylogeny and biogeography of Malagasy frogs of the genus Gephyromantis Nathalie Kaffenberger a,b,c , Katharina C. Wollenberg d , Jörn Köhler a , Frank Glaw e , David R. Vieites f , Miguel Vences b,⇑ a Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, Friedensplatz 1, 64283 Darmstadt, Germany b Zoological Institute, Technical University of Braunschweig, Mendelssohnstr. 4, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany c Senckenberg Naturhistorische Sammlungen Dresden, Königsbrücker Landstr. 159, 01109 Dresden, Germany d Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA e Zoologische Staatssammlung München, Münchhausenstr. 21, 81247 München, Germany f Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), C/José Gutierrez Abascal 2, 28006 Madrid, Spain article info Article history: Received 25 April 2011 Revised 21 September 2011 Accepted 28 September 2011 Available online 10 October 2011 Keywords: Amphibia Anura Mantellidae Gephyromantis Origin Dispersal Madagascar abstract The genus Gephyromantis is a clade within the Malagasy–Comoroan family Mantellidae composed of rain- forest frogs that live and breed to varying degrees independently from water. Based on DNA sequences of five mitochondrial and five nuclear genes we inferred the phylogeny of these frogs with full taxon cov- erage at the species level. Our preferred consensus tree from a partitioned Bayesian analysis of 5843 base pairs of 51 nominal and candidate species supports various major clades within the genus although the basal relationships among these remain unresolved. The data provide strong evidence for the monophyly of the subgenera Gephyromantis (after exclusion of Gephyromantis klemmeri), Laurentomantis, Vatomantis, and Phylacomantis. Species assigned to the subgenus Duboimantis belong to two strongly supported clades of uncertain relationships. G. klemmeri, previously in the subgenus Gephyromantis, was placed with high support sister to the Laurentomantis clade, and the Laurentomantis + G. klemmeri clade was sister to Vatomantis. A reconstruction of ancestral distribution areas indicates a diversification of several subgen- era in the northern biogeographic regions of Madagascar and the dispersal out of northern Madagascar for several clades. Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Tropical rainforests are by far the most species-rich regions for anurans. Among tropical frogs there is usually a considerable pro- portion of predominantly small, brownish species found in the leaf litter during the day or at more elevated positions in the vegeta- tion at night. From an evolutionary point of view, several such groups of brownish tropical frogs evolved convergently and belong to unrelated lineages confined to major biogeographic realms: in South-East Asia in the families Ceratobatrachidae (genus Platy- mantis), Rhacophoridae (e.g., Philautus) and Megophryidae (e.g., Leptolalax), in the Neotropics in the Terrarana clade (e.g., Eleuther- odactylus, Craugastor, Pristimantis), in Africa in the Arthroleptidae (Arthroleptis, Cardioglossa), and in Madagascar in the Mantellidae (Gephyromantis). Despite many morphological peculiarities char- acterizing single species or subclades, many of these terrestrial or scansorial frogs are morphologically very similar to each other. Taxonomically they ranged among the most poorly known groups of vertebrates until molecular approaches helped to organize the numerous species into families, genera and subgenera (e.g., Glaw and Vences, 2006; Hedges et al., 2008). In many cases these morphologically similar frogs represent old evolutionary lineages and may be characterized by large effective population sizes (Crawford, 2003). Many of them, furthermore, have endotrophic development, i.e. the embryos or non-feeding tadpoles develop in terrestrial nests or within the eggs (Thibaud and Altig, 1999), which might be a factor favoring their high species diversity (Dubois, 2004). In Madagascar, small, brown leaf litter frogs are represented by species of the genus Gephyromantis. According to current classifica- tion (Glaw and Vences, 2006; Glaw et al., 2006), Gephyromantis is a monophyletic group and part of the Malagasy–Comoroan endemic family Mantellidae. Its species are classified into five subgenera: Duboimantis, comprising medium-sized frogs with nocturnal call- ing behavior often from rather high perches; Phylacomantis with medium-sized species of mostly nocturnal calling behavior; Laurentomantis with small-sized, secretive nocturnal species with often very tubercular dorsal integument; Vatomantis, with small- sized species living between mossy boulders in small streams, with 1055-7903/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2011.09.023 ⇑ Corresponding author. Fax: +49 531 391 8198. E-mail address: m.vences@tu-bs.de (M. Vences). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 62 (2012) 555–560 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ympev