Species Delimitation of Eastern Pinesnake Complex (Pituophis melanoleucus)

Authors

  • Basanta Khakurel Department of Biological Sciences, Southeastern Louisiana University https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0511-2215
  • Zachary L. Nikolakis Department of Biological Sciences, Southeastern Louisiana University; Department of Biology, The University of Texas at Arlington
  • Brian I. Crother Department of Biological Sciences, Southeastern Louisiana University
  • April M. Wright Department of Biological Sciences, Southeastern Louisiana University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18061/bssb.v2i1.9423

Keywords:

eastern Pinesnake, species delimitation, bpp, Bayesian, sub-species, UCEs

Abstract

The eastern Pinesnake (Pituophis melanoleucus) is found throughout eastern United States. Taxonomy in this group has been controversial with several conflicting species designations. Three subspecies of the eastern Pinesnake have prevailed in the literature to their geographic locations and scale coloration: the northern Pinesnake (P. m. melanoleucus), the Florida Pinesnake (P. m. mugitus), and the Black Pinesnake (P. m. lodingi). Within the region, there are several major barriers to dispersal, particularly major river drainage systems and human modification of the longleaf pine habitat. Consistently, a lack of phylogenetic resolution has plagued these taxa in prior studies. The goal of this study was to examine the taxonomic validity of the eastern Pinesnake complex using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) isolated from ultra-conserved elements (UCEs) in phylogenetic and population genetic approaches. Molecular species delimitation approaches indicated that the population of eastern Pinesnake exhibits population structure across its range that may rise to the level of being new species.

Downloads

Published

2023-12-22

How to Cite

Khakurel, B., Nikolakis, Z. L., Crother, B. I., & Wright, A. (2023). Species Delimitation of Eastern Pinesnake Complex (Pituophis melanoleucus). ulletin of the ociety of ystematic iologists, 2(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.18061/bssb.v2i1.9423

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2023)

Section

Investigations

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Basanta Khakurel, Zachary L. Nikolakis, Brian I. Crother, April M. Wright

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This Author Agreement for the Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists ("Agreement") is entered into by and between The Ohio State University, on behalf of its University Libraries ("Publisher") and the author ("Author").

For good and valuable consideration, Publisher and Author agree as follows:

1. Author hereby grants to Publisher the right to publish, reproduce, distribute, translate, transmit and display his/her submitted work and an abstract thereof ("Work") in the Bulletin of the Society of Systematic Biologists