Eli Greenbaum

University of Texas at El Paso | UTEP · Department of Biological Sciences

The geographically widespread species Afrixalus laevis (Anura: Hyperoliidae) currently has a disjunct distribution in western Central Africa (Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and possibly adjacent countries) and the area in and near the Albertine Rift in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring countries. At least two herpetologi...

Sex‐determination systems are highly variable amongst vertebrate groups, and the prevalence of genomic data has greatly expanded our knowledge of how diverse some groups truly are. Gecko lizards are known to possess a variety of sex‐determination systems, and each new study increases our knowledge of this diversity. Here, we used RADseq to identify...

Fourteen Amietia sp. (Pyxicephalidae), from the Albertine Rift of Democratic Republic of the Congo were examined for helminths. Five species of Nematoda were found: Amphibiophilus chabaudi, Aplectana praeputialis, Falcaustra congoensis, Foleyellides duboisi and Orneoascaris chrysanthemoides. Amphibiophilus chabaudi was the most numerous nematode (n...

We report endoparasites from Philothamnus angolensis

Findings of internal parasites in Atheris nitschei

Most viperids are ambush predators that primarily use venom to subdue prey, employing a strike-release-trail hunting strategy whereby snakes follow the unique scent of envenomated prey to locate carcasses they have bitten and released. In addition to killing prey, rattlesnakes (like most carnivores) will also opportunistically scavenge carrion. Thi...

The African anuran genus Cardioglossa contains 19 described species, most of which are distinguished from one another by striking patterns and colors. We present a well-resolved phylogeny based on analyses of mitochondrial and nuclear loci for 18 species of Cardioglossa. This provides the basis for species-delimitation analyses and interpreting his...

Secondary sympatry among sister lineages is strongly associated with genetic and ecological divergence. This pattern suggests that for closely related species to coexist in secondary sympatry, they must accumulate differences in traits that mediate ecological and/or reproductive isolation. Here, we characterized inter‐ and intra‐specific divergence...

Grayia is a genus of relatively large (1.5 – 2.5 m) aquatic Afrotropical snakes that is currently comprised of four species. Recent molecular phylogenies recovered Grayia in its own distinct subfamily (Grayiinae), which was strongly supported as the sister group to Colubrinae. Because tropical African snakes are generally understudied, the relation...

The relative roles of rivers versus refugia in shaping the high levels of species diversity in tropical rainforests have been widely debated for decades. Only recently has it become possible to take an integrative approach to test predictions derived from these hypotheses using genomic sequencing and paleo-species distribution modeling. Herein, we...

The genus Toxicodryas, historically included with the renowned Australasian cat-eyed snakes of the colubrid genus Boiga, currently includes two widespread species (T. blandingii and T. pulverulenta) in western, central, and eastern Africa. We leverage findings from a recent phylogenomic and historical demographic analysis of this genus (based on 28...

Forty-two toads, Sclerophrys gutturalis (n = 15), S. pusilla (n = 15) and S. regularis (n = 12) were examined for helminths. Eight species of Nematoda (Aplectana macintoshii, A. praeputialis, Chabaudus leberrei, Cosmocerca ornata, Neofoleyellides boerewors, Orneoascaris chrysanthemoides, Rhabdias bufonis and Meteterakis sp.) and one species of Cest...

The fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is implicated in global declines of amphibian populations and has been documented in African specimens originally collected as far back as the 1930s. Numerous recent surveys focusing on regional pathogen prevalence have greatly increased the number of known occurrences of Bd in African species...

Using integrative approaches, a new large-bodied species of Phrynobatrachus is described from a series of 48 specimens from the montane forests of the West Usambara and North Pare Mountains of Tanzania. The most distinguishing morphological feature separating Phrynobatrachus ambanguluensis sp. nov from similar species is the markedly overhanging an...

Colleagues: thank you for your interest in this work. A preprint for this paper was generated by accident and it requires major revisions before it will be published. Of course I will update the project when the paper is in press, but until then I will be declining requests for this preprint. Thank you for your understanding.

The African colubrid snake genus Crotaphopeltis currently comprises six species and occurs throughout sub‐Saharan Africa. The most widespread of these, Crotaphopeltis hotamboeia, inhabits most biomes, aside from rainforest and hyper‐arid regions, and its catholic niche has presumably facilitated substantial gene flow. Despite this, the geographical...

Community ecology patterns are poorly understood in Uganda, as well as in the rest of East Africa. Therefore, the aim of the study was to determine the patterns of diversity and distribution of reptiles and amphibians in selected wetland sites in the greater Nabugabo–Ramsar area, Uganda with contributions to the understanding of their ecology and c...

Psammophylax (Fitzinger 1843) is a widespread yet poorly studied genus of African grass snakes. A genetic phylogeny of six of the seven species was estimated using multiple phylogenetic and distance‐based methods. To support the genetic analyses, we conducted morphological analyses on the body (traditional morphology) and head (geometric morphometr...

Species with wide distributions spanning the African Guinean and Congolian rain forests are often composed of genetically distinct populations or cryptic species with geographic distributions that mirror the locations of the remaining forest habitats. We used phylogeographic inference and demographic model testing to evaluate diversification models...

Batesian mimicry is a phenomenon in nature whereby a non-toxic animal emulates a noxious one, seeking to deter predators by deception. This type of mimicry occurs in many animals, with numerous documented examples of invertebrates, harmless squamates, and even birds that mimic venomous snakes. However, no observations of anurans mimicking venomous...

African snake-eaters of the genus Polemon are cryptic, fossorial snakes that mainly inhabit the forests of central, eastern, and western Africa. Molecular results from a previous study demonstrated that Polemon christyi is not monophyletic-two distinct lineages were recovered from Uganda (the type locality) and southeastern Democratic Republic of t...

Cobras are among the most widely known venomous snakes, and yet their taxonomy remains incompletely understood, particularly in Africa. Here, we use a combination of mitochondrial and nuclear gene sequences and morphological data to diagnose species limits within the African forest cobra, Naja (Boulengerina) melanoleuca. Mitochondrial DNA sequences...

Falcaustra congoensis n. sp. (Ascaridida, Kathlaniidae) from the large intestine of Amietia nutti (Boulenger, 1896) (Anura, Pyxicephalidae) is described and illustrated. Falcaustra congoensis represents the 16th Afrotropical species assigned to the genus and is distinguished from other Aftrotropical species by the distribution pattern of the caudal...

Several biogeographic barriers in the Central African highlands have reduced gene flow among populations of many terrestrial species in predictable ways. Yet, a comprehensive understanding of mechanisms underlying species divergence in the Afrotropics can be obscured by unrecognized levels of cryptic diversity, particularly in widespread species. W...

Scientists are increasingly called upon to communicate with the public, yet most never receive formal training in this area. Public understanding is particularly critical to maintaining support for undervalued resources such as biological collections, research data repositories, and expensive equipment. We describe activities carried out in an inqu...

Appendix 1: Sample laboratory exercises, Appendix 2: Poster project instructions, Appendix 3: Poster grading rubric

We present the first integrative review of the African agamid lizard Acanthocercus atricollis, a broadly distributed species found from Ethiopia through East Africa to Angola and South Africa. Since the original description of the species approximately 170 years ago six subspecies have been described, mainly on the basis of coloration characters. O...

The sub-Saharan African file snake genus Gonionotophis is currently comprised of 15 species. However, the concept of this genus has been confounded by morphological and genetic differences between the constituent taxa. Due to the dearth of DNA samples, a taxonomic assessment has been impractical to date. We therefore sequenced two mitochondrial and...

Frogs in the genus Amnirana (family Ranidae) are widely distributed across sub-Saharan Africa and present a model system for exploring the relationship between diversification and geography across the continent. Using multiple loci from the mitochondrial (16S) and nuclear genomes (DISP2, FICD, KIAA2013, REV3L), we generated a strongly supported spe...

Emerald Labyrinth is a scientist and adventurer’s chronicle of years exploring the rainforests of sub-Saharan Africa. The richly varied habitats of the Democratic Republic of the Congo offer a wealth of animal, plant, chemical, and medical discoveries. But the country also has a deeply troubled colonial past and a complicated political present. Aut...

Organismal traits interact with environmental variation to mediate how species respond to shared landscapes. Thus, differences in traits related to dispersal ability or physiological tolerance may result in phylogeographic discordance among co-distributed taxa, even when they are responding to common barriers. We quantified climatic suitability and...

The Albertine Rift (AR) is a centre for vertebrate endemism in Central Africa, yet the mechanisms underlying line-age diversification of the region's fauna remain unresolved. We generated a multilocus molecular phylogeny consisting of two mitochondrial (16S and ND2) and one nuclear (RAG1) gene to reconstruct relationships and examine spatiotemporal...

We published a phylogenetic comparative analysis that found geckos had gained and lost adhesive toepads multiple times over their long evolutionary history (Gamble et al. 2012). This was consistent with decades of morphological studies showing geckos had evolved adhesive toepads on multiple occasions and that the morphology of geckos with ancestral...

We evaluated the status of 16 of 22 recognized Sri Lankan Cnemaspis Strauch species, and flagged overlooked diversity with two mitochondrial (cyt b & ND2) and two nuclear markers (RAG1 & PDC) totalling 2829 base pairs. A fossil-calibrated timetree and sampling of other South Asian Cnemaspis provide insights into the diversification of the genus in...

The Mascarene ridged frog, Ptychadena mascareniensis, is a species complex that includes numerous lineages occurring mostly in humid savannas and open forests of mainland Africa, Madagascar, the Seychelles, and the Mascarene Islands. Sampling across this broad distribution presents an opportunity to examine the genetic differentiation within this c...

The savannah and tropical forest biomes of Africa have a long history of expansion and contraction, and the recent and rapid spread of dry savannah habitats has influenced the spatial and temporal diversification of vertebrate taxa across this region. We used a combination of species tree and phylogeographic methods to describe the spatio-temporal...

The species diversity of the frog genus Cardioglossa (family Arthroleptidae) is concentrated in the Lower Guinean Forest Zone of Central Africa with most of the 19 species occurring in Cameroon and neighboring countries (Amiet 1972a,b; Blackburn 2008; Hirschfeld et al . 2015). These small leaf-litter frogs are typically found in primary or secondar...

Biodiversity hotspots, which harbor more endemic species than elsewhere on Earth, are increasingly threatened. There is a need to accelerate collection efforts in these regions before threatened or endangered species become extinct. The diverse geographical, ecological, genetic, morphological, and behavioral data generated from the on-site collecti...

The raw scored data obtained from the tissue evaluations of three independent raters, in Microsoft Excel format. (XLSX)

Original R script for our statistical analysis, in Microsoft Word format. (DOCX)

Biodiversity hotspots, which harbor more endemic species than elsewhere on Earth, are increasingly threatened. There is a need to accelerate collection efforts in these regions before threatened or endangered species become extinct. The diverse geographical, ecological, genetic, morphological, and behavioral data generated from the on-site collecti...

The African river frog genus Amietia is found near rivers and other lentic water sources throughout central, eastern, and southern Africa. Because the genus includes multiple morphologically conservative species, taxonomic studies of river frogs have been relatively limited. We sampled 79 individuals of Amietia from multiple localities in and near...

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), the cause of chytridiomycosis, is a pathogenic fungus that is found worldwide and is a major contributor to amphibian declines and extinctions. We report results of a comprehensive effort to assess the distribution and threat of Bd in one of the Earth's most important biodiversity hotspots, the Albertine Rift in...

Trained model of the current relative habitat suitability and distribution of Bd. A. (Initial model). Current distribution of areas where amphibians are likely to be at risk for Bd infection using original records (maroon hexagons). All areas predicted as suitable where the new positive localities (green hexagons) appear indicate areas where we had...

FASTA file. DNA sequence alignment of partial ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 sequences used in Fig 2. (FASTA)

Calculated copy numbers in positive samples. Log-scale graph showing all Bd-positive samples plotted against the calculated number of copies of the ITS1-5.8S region per swab. Error bars indicate the standard deviation (positive only) for each triplicate sample. Red bars indicate which two samples had corresponding skin tissue analyzed and had histo...

Summary of Bd results from historical specimens. Elevations are in meters above sea level. (DOCX)

PCR results of historical samples collected from Makerere University in Uganda. Elevations are in meters above sea level. (DOCX)

Sample ID, Genus, Date of collection, and GPS location of all Bd positive samples included in the modelling analysis. Elevations are in meters above sea level. (DOCX)

Additional Bd-positive localities provided by Bd-maps.net and E. Greenbaum that went into the modelling analysis [29–32,49]. Elevations are in meters above sea level. (DOCX)

African clawed frogs, genus Xenopus, are extraordinary among vertebrates in the diversity of their polyploid species and the high number of independent polyploidization events that occurred during their diversification. Here we update current understanding of the evolutionary history of this group and describe six new species from west and central...

Full size version of Fig 6, part two of three. (TIF)

Full size version of Fig 7, part two of three. (TIF)

Photographs of type material from several previously described Xenopus taxa part two of six. (TIF)

Photographs of type material from several previously described Xenopus taxa part three of six. (TIF)

Photographs of type material from several previously described Xenopus taxa part four of six. (TIF)

X-ray of X. eysoole holotype (MCZ A-138016). (TIF)

Analysis of mitochondrial DNA data using the calibration from [9]. Labeling follows Fig 2. (TIF)

Photographs of type material from several previously described Xenopus taxa part six of six. (TIF)

Specimens for which sequence data were obtained. (XLSX)

Full size version of Fig 6, part one of three. (TIF)

Full size version of Fig 7, part one of three. (TIF)

Full size version of Fig 7, part three of three. (TIF)

Photographs of type material from several previously described Xenopus taxa part one of six. Images include, from subgenus Silurana: X. tropicalis (BMNH 1947.2.24.83) and X. epitropicalis (BMNH 1982.462), from amieti species group: X. amieti (MHNG 2030.80), X. andrei (MHNG 2088.32), X. boumbaensis (MHNG 2080.31), X. itombwensis (MCZ A-138192), X. l...

Photographs of type material from several previously described Xenopus taxa part five of six. (TIF)

Analysis of mitochondrial DNA data using the calibration from [9]. Labeling follows Fig 1. (TIF)

Full size version of Fig 6, part three of three. (TIF)

Specimens examined and morphological data. (XLSX)

Information on CT scan settings (excluding X. calcaratus type). (XLSX)