title: Monitors cross the Red Sea: the biogeographic history of Varanus yemenensis.
abstract: The Red Sea has had a profound biogeographic effect on organisms with Afro-Asian distributions, resulting in complex patterns of admixture on the Arabian Peninsula. We investigate the phylogenetic affinities of a monitor lizard (Varanus yemenensis) restricted to the southwestern Arabian Peninsula by sequencing all African monitor species and several Asian monitor species for the mitochondrial gene ND2 and the nuclear marker RAG-1. We find evidence that V. yemenensis is of African origin, being most closely related to the white-throat monitor, V. albigularis, an African species complex distributed from the Horn of Africa to southern Africa. Using divergence-dating analyses, we investigate several biogeographic hypotheses to infer the likely mechanism of colonization of the Arabian Peninsula by this species. Our results reveal that both dispersal across a southern land bridge and overwater dispersal are potential explanations. The patterns observed in V. yemenensis are contrasted with other taxa having similar Afro-Arabian disjunct distributions to better understand the complex biogeographic history of this region.
authors: Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and Department of Integrative Biology, 3101 Valley Life Sciences Building, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3160, USA. oliver.hawlitschek@gmx.de
authors: Daniel M
authors: DM
authors: Portik
authors: Theodore J
authors: TJ
authors: Papenfuss
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa; D000818:Animals; D001208:Asia; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D050259:Genes, Mitochondrial; D049810:Genetic Speciation; D014644:Genetic Variation; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D019156:Indian Ocean; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D008116:Lizards / Q000235:genetics*; D008390:Markov Chains; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009245:NADH Dehydrogenase / Q000235:genetics; D010802:Phylogeny; D058974:Phylogeography; D030162:Reptilian Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D018398:Homeodomain Proteins; D030162:Reptilian Proteins; C064658:RAG-1 protein; D009245:NADH Dehydrogenase