Genetic study finds treasure trove of new lizards in Australia

University of Adelaide (UA) research has discovered that there are many more species of Australian lizards than previously thought, raising new questions about conservation and management of Australia's native reptiles.

PhD student Paul Oliver, from US's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, has completed a detailed genetic study of the Australian gecko genus Diplodactylus and found more than twice the recognised number of gecko species, from 13 species to 29. The study was undertaken in collaboration with the South Australian Museum and Western Australian Museum.

Mr Oliver said "Many of these species are externally very similar, leading to previous severe underestimation of true species diversity. One of the major problems for biodiversity conservation and management is that many species remain undocumented. This problem is widely acknowledged to be dire among invertebrates and in developing countries. But in this group of vertebrates in a developed nation, which we thought we knew reasonably well, we found more than half the species were unrecognised."

Mr Oliver points out that this has great significance for conservation. For instance, what was thought to be a single very widespread species of gecko has turned out to be eight or nine separate species with much narrower and more restricted habitats, so they are probably much more vulnerable to environmental change.

Incomplete taxonomy
"This completely changes how we look at conservation management of these species. Even at just the basic inventory level, this shows that there is a lot of work still to be done. Vertebrate taxonomy clearly remains far from complete with many species still to be discovered. This will require detailed genetic and morphological work, using integrated data from multiple sources. It will require considerable effort and expense but with potentially rich returns."

A paper on this study `Cryptic diversity in vertebrates: molecular data doubles estimates of species diversity in a radiation of Australian lizards (Diplodactylus, Gekkota)' is published online in Proceedings of the Royal Society: B.
The research was supported by grants from the Australia & Pacific Science Foundation and the Australian Biological Resources Study.