ORIGINAL ARTICLE Phylogenetic relationships within a patagonian clade of reptiles (Liolaemidae: Phymaturus) based on DNA sequences and morphology Fernando Lobo 1 | Diego A. Barrasso 2,3 | Marcos Paz 4 | N  estor G. Basso 2,3 1 IBIGEO (Instituto de Bio y Geociencias del NOA), Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Salta and CONICET, Salta, Argentina 2 IDEAUS (Instituto de Diversidad y Evoluci  on Austral-CONICET), Puerto Madryn, Chubut, Argentina 3 Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia “San Juan Bosco” (UNPSJB), Puerto Madryn, Chubut, Argentina 4 UEL (Unidad Ejecutora Lillo-CONICET), S. M. de Tucum an, Argentina Correspondence Fernando Lobo Email: flobo@unsa.edu.ar Funding information PIP conicet (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas), Grant/Award Number: PIP 0871 Contributing authors: Diego A. Barrasso (diegobarrasso@gmail.com); Marcos Paz (marcosmax_paz@hotmail.com); N estor G. Basso (nbasso@cenpat-conicet.gob.ar) Abstract Phymaturus is a clade of lizards that occurs at moderate to high elevations in western Argentina and the adjacent central region of Chile, as well as in various volcanic pla- teaus of the Patagonian region of Argentina. This genus had previously been divided into two groups: the patagonicus and the palluma groups. In this study, we analyzed relationships within the patagonicus group. The data set was built for 23 species plus nine other terminal taxa of undetermined taxonomic status. In total, 10,631 bp (ND4, Cytb, 12S, COI, five protein coding nuclear genes and seven anonymous nuclear loci) and 254 morphological characters were analyzed in a combined data set for 35 ingroup taxa and nine outgroups. We also ran separate DNA sequence and morpho- logical data sets. We identified four main clades, and revealed congruencies and incongruences with previous studies. The indistinctus clade is recovered as the most basal within the patagonicus group in the strict parsimony analysis, while the so- muncurensis clade is the most basal under Bayesian inference. The previously recov- ered calcogaster clade resulted paraphyletic in both analyses and part of their species are included in a redefined somuncurensis clade. We found low support at basal nodes provoked in part by contradictory evidence shown by rogue taxa. We show the phylo- genetic information given by each partition/marker and how they contribute to rela- tionships found in the total evidence analysis. We discuss the phylogenetic position of Phymaturus manuelae, Phymaturus tenebrosus, and Phymaturus patagonicus. KEYWORDS diversity, evolution, lizards, patagonia, phylogeny, Phymaturus 1 | INTRODUCTION The genus Phymaturus comprises lizards of a very conservative mode of life, they are all saxicolous, herbivorous and viviparous lizards found in Patagonian and Andean landscapes of Argentina and Chile. Contrary to its sister genus Liolaemus, Phymaturus is strictly herbivo- rous (see occurrence of herbivory in Liolaemus in Espinoza, Wiens, & Tracy, 2004; Valdecantos, Arias, & Espinoza, 2012) and all species of Phymaturus are viviparous (see about viviparism of Liolaemus in Schulte, Macey, Espinoza, & Larson, 2000; Cei, Videla, & Vicente, 2003; among others). Within Phymaturus, two groups are recognized (Etheridge, 1995): the palluma and the patagonicus groups, whose monophyly was confirmed by several independent studies (Espinoza et al., 2004; Lobo & Quinteros, 2005; Lobo, Abdala, & Valdecantos, 2012; Morando, Avila, P erez, Hawkins, & Sites, 2013; Pyron, Bur- brink, & Wiens, 2013). The Phymaturus patagonicus group is composed of 25 taxa (Table 1) distributed entirely in Argentina. It extends from the region called Payunia (Mendoza and Neuqu en provinces) to south- ern Chubut Province, adjacent to Colihue Lake (Cei & Castro, 1973; Lobo, Abdala, & Valdecantos, 2012; Morando et al., 2013). The earliest studies on this group were the original descriptions of Accepted: 13 February 2018 DOI: 10.1111/jzs.12221 J Zool Syst Evol Res. 2018;1–21. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jzs © 2018 Blackwell Verlag GmbH | 1