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      Mid-Cretaceous amber fossils illuminate the past diversity of tropical lizards

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          Abstract

          Exquisitely preserved fossil lizards from 99-million-year-old Burmese amber provide new insights into paleotropical diversity.

          Abstract

          Modern tropical forests harbor an enormous diversity of squamates, but fossilization in such environments is uncommon and little is known about tropical lizard assemblages of the Mesozoic. We report the oldest lizard assemblage preserved in amber, providing insight into the poorly preserved but potentially diverse mid-Cretaceous paleotropics. Twelve specimens from the Albian-Cenomanian boundary of Myanmar (99 Ma) preserve fine details of soft tissue and osteology, and high-resolution x-ray computed tomography permits detailed comparisons to extant and extinct lizards. The extraordinary preservation allows several specimens to be confidently assigned to groups including stem Gekkota and stem Chamaleonidae. Other taxa are assignable to crown clades on the basis of similar traits. The detailed preservation of osteological and soft tissue characters in these specimens may facilitate their precise phylogenetic placement, making them useful calibration points for molecular divergence time estimates and potential keys for resolving conflicts in higher-order squamate relationships.

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          Integrated Analyses Resolve Conflicts over Squamate Reptile Phylogeny and Reveal Unexpected Placements for Fossil Taxa

          Tod Reeder, Ted Townsend, Daniel Mulcahy … (2015)
          Squamate reptiles (lizards and snakes) are a pivotal group whose relationships have become increasingly controversial. Squamates include >9000 species, making them the second largest group of terrestrial vertebrates. They are important medicinally and as model systems for ecological and evolutionary research. However, studies of squamate biology are hindered by uncertainty over their relationships, and some consider squamate phylogeny unresolved, given recent conflicts between molecular and morphological results. To resolve these conflicts, we expand existing morphological and molecular datasets for squamates (691 morphological characters and 46 genes, for 161 living and 49 fossil taxa, including a new set of 81 morphological characters and adding two genes from published studies) and perform integrated analyses. Our results resolve higher-level relationships as indicated by molecular analyses, and reveal hidden morphological support for the molecular hypothesis (but not vice-versa). Furthermore, we find that integrating molecular, morphological, and paleontological data leads to surprising placements for two major fossil clades (Mosasauria and Polyglyphanodontia). These results further demonstrate the importance of combining fossil and molecular information, and the potential problems of estimating the placement of fossil taxa from morphological data alone. Thus, our results caution against estimating fossil relationships without considering relevant molecular data, and against placing fossils into molecular trees (e.g. for dating analyses) without considering the possible impact of molecular data on their placement.
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            Mass extinction of lizards and snakes at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary.

            Nicholas R Longrich, Michel J A Gauthier, Bhart-Anjan S Bhullar (2012)
            The Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary is marked by a major mass extinction, yet this event is thought to have had little effect on the diversity of lizards and snakes (Squamata). A revision of fossil squamates from the Maastrichtian and Paleocene of North America shows that lizards and snakes suffered a devastating mass extinction coinciding with the Chicxulub asteroid impact. Species-level extinction was 83%, and the K-Pg event resulted in the elimination of many lizard groups and a dramatic decrease in morphological disparity. Survival was associated with small body size and perhaps large geographic range. The recovery was prolonged; diversity did not approach Cretaceous levels until 10 My after the extinction, and resulted in a dramatic change in faunal composition. The squamate fossil record shows that the end-Cretaceous mass extinction was far more severe than previously believed, and underscores the role played by mass extinctions in driving diversification.
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              Large-scale phylogeny of chameleons suggests African origins and Eocene diversification.

              Krystal Tolley, Ted Townsend, Miguel Vences (2013)
              Oceanic dispersal has emerged as an important factor contributing to biogeographic patterns in numerous taxa. Chameleons are a clear example of this, as they are primarily found in Africa and Madagascar, but the age of the family is post-Gondwanan break-up. A Malagasy origin for the family has been suggested, yet this hypothesis has not been tested using modern biogeographic methods with a dated phylogeny. To examine competing hypotheses of African and Malagasy origins, we generated a dated phylogeny using between six and 13 genetic markers, for up to 174 taxa representing greater than 90 per cent of all named species. Using three different ancestral-state reconstruction methods (Bayesian and likelihood approaches), we show that the family most probably originated in Africa, with two separate oceanic dispersals to Madagascar during the Palaeocene and the Oligocene, when prevailing oceanic currents would have favoured eastward dispersal. Diversification of genus-level clades took place in the Eocene, and species-level diversification occurred primarily in the Oligocene. Plio-Pleistocene speciation is rare, resulting in a phylogeny dominated by palaeo-endemic species. We suggest that contraction and fragmentation of the Pan-African forest coupled to an increase in open habitats (savannah, grassland, heathland), since the Oligocene played a key role in diversification of this group through vicariance.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Journal ID (nlm-ta): Sci Adv
                Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Sci Adv
                Journal ID (publisher-id): SciAdv
                Journal ID (hwp): advances
                Title: Science Advances
                Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science
                ISSN (Electronic): 2375-2548
                Publication date Collection: March 2016
                Publication date (Electronic): 04 March 2016
                Volume: 2
                Issue: 3
                Electronic Location Identifier: e1501080
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Department of Biological Sciences, Sam Houston State University, 1900 Avenue I, Lee Drain Building Suite 300, Huntsville, TX 77341, USA.
                [2 ]Department of Herpetology, Florida Museum of Natural History, 3215 Hull Road, Gainesville, FL 31611, USA.
                [3 ]Department of Herpetology, California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Drive, San Francisco, CA 94118, USA.
                [4 ]Zoologische Staatssammlung München, Münchhausenstraße 21, 81247 Munich, Germany.
                [5 ]Department of Biology, Villanova University, 800 Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, PA 19085, USA.
                [6 ]Division of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY 10024–5192, USA.
                Author notes
                [* ]Corresponding author. E-mail: jdd054@ 123456shsu.edu
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5651-0240
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5257-037X
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6839-8025
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2271-0172
                Article
                Publisher ID: 1501080
                DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1501080
                PMC ID: 4783129
                PubMed ID: 26973870
                SO-VID: b525c0c4-7b9d-45df-b461-ad7bb40bcae7
                Copyright © Copyright © 2016, The Authors
                License:

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.

                History
                Date received : 12 August 2015
                Date accepted : 13 January 2016
                Categories
                Subject: Research Article
                Subject: Research Articles
                Subject: SciAdv r-articles
                Subject: Paleobiology
                Subject: Paleobiology
                Custom metadata
                Copyeditor Mau Buenaventura

                Keywords: mesozoic period,fossils,lizards,paleobiology
                Data availability:
                Keywords: mesozoic period, fossils, lizards, paleobiology

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