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Resurrecting an Extinct Species: Archival DNA, Taxonomy, and Conservation of the Vegas Valley Leopard Frog
Citation:
Hekkala, E. R., R. Saumure, J. R. Jaeger, H. Herrmann, M. Sredl, M. Culver, D. F. BRADFORD, D. Drabeck, AND M. J. Blum. Resurrecting an Extinct Species: Archival DNA, Taxonomy, and Conservation of the Vegas Valley Leopard Frog. CONSERVATION GENETICS. Springer Science+Business Media, 12:1379-1385, (2011).
Impact/Purpose:
Conservation of imperiled species requires correct diagnosis of taxonomic status for effective implementation of management actions. The need for reliable taxonomy is most obvious in management plans that involve translocation, re-introduction, population augmentation, or captive propagation (Kleiman 1989) and the declining leopard frog species (family Ranidae) from southwestern North America present an example of how unresolved relationships can impede or complicate conservation strategies (e.g. Jaeger et al. 2001; Goldberg et al. 2004).
Description:
Suggestions that the extinct Vegas Valley leopard frog (Rana fisheri = Lithobates fisheri) may have been synonymous with one of several declining species has complicated recovery planning for imperiled leopard frogs in southwestern North America. To address this concern, we reconstructed the phylogenetic position of R. fisheri from mitochondrial and nuclear sequence data obtained from century-old museum specimens. Analyses including representative North American Rana species recovered archival specimens within the clade comprising Federally Threatened Chiricahua leopard frogs (Rana chiricahuensis = Lithobates chiricahuensis). Further analysis of Chiricahua leopard frogs recovered two diagnosable lineages. One lineage is composed of R. fisheri specimens and R. chiricahuensis inhabiting the Mogollon Rim in central Arizona. The other encompasses R. chiricahuensis from southeastern Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico. These findings effectively resurrect R. fisheri and ascribe R. miricahuensis populations from the northwestern most portion of its range to R. fisheri, demonstrating how phylogenetic placement of archival specimens can inform recovery and conservation plans, especially those that call for translocation, re-introduction, or population augmentation of imperiled species.
URLs/Downloads:
BRADFORD 10-102 FINAL JOURNAL ARTICLE..PDF (PDF, NA pp, 382 KB, about PDF)Resurrecting an Extinct Species: Archival DNA, Taxonomy, and Conservation of the Vegas Valley Leopard Frog
