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. 2019 Oct 2;9(23):13030–13042. doi: 10.1002/ece3.5680

Morphological characterization and phylogenetic relationships of Indochinese box turtles—The Cuora galbinifrons complex

Xiaoli Liu 1, Wei Li 1, Zhaoyang Ye 1,2, Yanyu Zhu 1,2, Xiaoyou Hong 1, Xinping Zhu 1,✉
PMCID: PMC6912918  PMID: 31871627

Abstract

The members of the Indochinese box turtle complex, namely Cuora galbinifrons, Cuora bourreti, and Cuora picturata, rank the most critically endangered turtle species on earth after more than three decades of over‐harvesting for food, traditional Chinese medicine, and pet markets. Despite advances in molecular biology, species boundaries and phylogenetic relationships, the status of the C. galbinifrons complex remains unresolved due to the small number of specimens observed and collected in the field. In this study, we present analyses of morphologic characters as well as mitochondrial and nuclear DNA data to reconstruct the species boundaries and systematic relationships within the C. galbinifrons complex. Based on principal component analysis (PCA) and statistical analysis, we found that phenotypic traits partially overlapped among galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata, and that galbinifrons and bourreti might be only subspecifically distinct. Moreover, we used the mitochondrial genome, COI, and nuclear gene Rag1 under the maximum likelihood criteria and Bayesian inference criteria to elucidate whether C. galbinifrons could be divided into three separate species or subspecies. We found strong support for a sister relationship between picturata and the other two species, and consequently, we recommend maintaining picturata as a full species, and classifying bourreti and galbinifrons as subspecies of C. galbinifrons. These findings provide evidence for a better understanding of the evolutionary histories of these critically endangered turtles.

Keywords: Cuora, molecular marker, morphology, phylogenetics, turtle

Phenotypic traits partially overlapped among galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata, and galbinifrons and bourreti might be only subspecifically distinct. We found strong support for a sister relationship between picturata and the other two species, and consequently, we recommend maintaining picturata as full species, and classifying bourreti and galbinifrons as subspecies of the C. galbinifrons.

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1. INTRODUCTION

Turtles have been determined among the oldest known reptiles on earth since the rise of the dinosaurs based on the discovery of the earliest fossil which was found from the Triassic in China (Joyce & Gauthier, 2004). During the last three decades, the excessive exploitation of turtles for the pet trade throughout Asia and, the effects of habitat loss, invasive species, and unclear phylogenetic relationships, combined with the traditional Chinese markets for medicinal and edible purposes, have placed turtles in the center of highly endangered taxa (Gong et al., 2009; Parham, Simison, Kozak, Feldman, & Shi, 2001). According to reports, 51.9% of existing turtle species are recognized as threatened, 20% as critically endangered, and 35.3% are critically endangered or endangered by the World Conservation Union (IUCN TFTSG, 2018). The genus Cuora, a member of the Geoemydidae family, are restricted to southeast and east Asia (Takahashi, Ishido, & Hirayama, 2013). Among them in the genus Cuora, 12 species are critically endangered and one species is endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN TFTSG, 2018). Given their plight, knowledge of the distribution patterns and the current diversity and phylogeny have significant consequences for species protection (IUCN TFTSG, 2018).

The recently increased data sampling has greatly improved our understanding of the evolutionary relationships of endangered species (Øivind et al., 2011). However, species boundaries, the phylogeny of the genus, and the genetic diversity of populations are still confused and uncertain, as most of the recent records are based on hunters or pet dealers (Parham et al., 2001). For instance, within the Cuora galbinifrons complex, varying numbers of recognized species (1–3) have been proposed by separate authors (Fritz & Havaš, 2007; Spinks, Thomson, & Shaffer, 2009; Zhang, Nie, Cao, & Zhang, 2008). While they were initially described as subspecies of C. galbinifrons (Bourret, 1939), C. g. bourreti by Obst and Reimann (1994), and C. g. picturata (Lehr, Fritz, Obst, 1998), most recent works follow the recommendation by Stuart and Parham (2004) to treat Cuora galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata as full species because they are morphologically distinguishable and reciprocally monophyletic and have three major mitochondrial DNA clades (Fritz, Petzold, & Auer, 2006; Stuart & Parham, 2004). However, possible introgression between bourreti and galbinifrons within the Cuora galbinifrons population on Hainan and areas of intergradation in central Vietnam (Fritz & Mendau, 2002), which qualifies bourreti and galbinifrons as conspecifics under the biological species concept, challenged this conclusion (Fritz et al., 2006). The claim that Hainan hosts possible hybrids as proposed by De Bruin and Artner (1999) has never been substantiated and it is very likely that bourreti on Hainan are only from pet trade (Blanck, 2013; Stuart & Parham, 2004); however, the population from Hannan has been described as Cuora flavomarginata hainanensis by Li (1958), later included into the synonymy of C. galbinifrons by Zhao and Adler (1993) followed by most other authors including Stuart and Parham (2004).

The indefinite geographical range of the wild population, the misinterpretations of molecular‐based phylogenies by different mitochondrial genes or nuclear mitochondrial pseudogenes, and the incomplete lineage sorting and introgression are the main reasons for the ambiguity of taxonomy and systematics of Cuora species. In this study, we used nuclear (Rag1) and mitochondrial markers (genome and COI) in conjunction with morphologic characters to construct the phylogeny among the C. galbinifrons complex (galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata), as these geometric morphometrics and molecular markers have been extensively utilized to investigate the origin and evolutionary history of vertebrates, including the whale shark (Rhincodon typus; Md Tauqeer, Petit, Read, & Dove, 2014), Chinese three‐striped box turtle (Cuora trifasciata; Li, Zhang, Zhao, Shi, & Zhu, 2015), Carassius species complex (Liu, Li, et al., 2017), Conorhynchos (Sullivan, Lundberg, & Hardman, 2006), Hemiculter leucisculus (Cheng et al., 2018), and Magadi tilapia (Kavembe, Kautt, Machado‐Schiaffino, & Meyer, 2016). We detected morphological differences among the C. galbinifrons complex, and moreover, based on the results of nuclear and mitochondrial markers, we investigated whether the galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata groups can be regarded as separate species or subspecies. The findings of this study further explore the phylogeny of highly threatened Cuora and provide significant referenced values for species conservation.

2. MATERIALS AND METHODS

2.1. Turtle collection and morphometric measurements

A total of 10 galbinifrons (eight specimens and one live turtle), nine bourreti (eight specimens and one live turtle), and five live picturata were obtained from Gaoming turtle breeding farm, Foshan city. Each specimen was photographed with a digital camera (Figure 1), and its nails were obtained and placed in absolute ethyl alcohol (Weijia Biotechnology Co., Ltd.) for one night and then transferred to −20°C conditions for group genetic analysis. Subsequently, we selected morphological landmarks to provide a precise definition of the turtle morphology. A total of 11 morphological characters were measured (Figure 2a–c and Table 1). Each morphological character was detected three different times to ensure its repeatability. We declare that the animal experimentation has been approved by the Pearl River Fisheries Research Institute (PRFRI, authorization number 45541566–7). All turtles used in this study were treated humanely and ethically, and we followed all applicable Chinese institutional animal care guidelines.

Figure 1.

Figure 1

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Shell morphology, head coloration, and patterning and coloration of plastron in C. galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata

Figure 2.

Figure 2

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Morphological variation analysis among C. galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata. (a–c) Locations of eleven homologous landmarks for morphological analyses of the three Cuora species. Detailed information on the 11 morphological characters is provided in Table 1. (d) Principal component analysis (PCA) based on 11 geometric morphometrics. The green triangle, blue box, and red circle represent C. galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata, respectively

Table 1.

Eleven morphological characters of the specimens

Code Morphometric characters Measurement
M1 Weight –
M2 Carapace length 1–2 (Maximum linear length of carapace scutes)
M3 Carapace width 3–4 (Maximum linear width of carapace scutes)
M4 Body height 5 (Maximum linear height between carapace scutes and plastron scutes)
M5 Plastron length 6–7 (Maximum linear length of plastron scutes)
M6 Length of second half of the epigastrium 7–8 (Maximum vertical straight line length from inguinal shield to rear edge of tail shield)
M7 Anterior half width of abdominal armor 9–10 (Maximum linear width in front of axillary shield)
M8 Posterior half anterior width of abdominal armor 11–12 (Linear width at the junction of abdominal shield and femoral shield)
M9 Posterior half posterior width of abdominal armor 13–14 (Linear width at the junction of femoral shield and anal shield)
M10 Tortoiseshell bridge length 8–10 (Linear length from axillary shield to inguinal shield)
M11 Throat shield width 15–16 (Maximum linear width of gular shield)
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2.2. Analysis of morphological differences

A homogeneity test of variances and one‐way analysis of variance (one‐way ANOVA) in SPSS version 20.0 were used to test for intergroup variation of the above 11 morphological characters. Duncan's multiple comparison was conducted on the variables with homogeneity of variance, and Tamhane's T2 method was used to analyze the variables without homogeneity of variance (significant level p = .05). Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to highlight the differences of 11 morphological characters among the three Cuora species by SPSS version 20.0. The KMO and Bartlett's tests were used to detect whether the 11 morphological characters were suitable for factor analysis. All PCAs with eigenvalues >1.00 were considered important (Chatfield & Collins, 1983), and the first three principal components with cumulative contribution rates >85% were selected.

2.3. DNA extraction and nucleotide sequencing

Genomic DNA was extracted from the turtle nails by DNA Kit (Omega) following the manufacturer's protocol. Fifteen pairs of primers (Table S1) were designed to amplify the complete mitochondrial genome of C. galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata according to previously published mitogenomes of the genus Cuora (Li et al., 2015). The PCR conditions were as follows: 95°C for 2 min, 35 cycles at 94°C for 30 s, 53–58°C for 30 s, 72°C for 2 min, and 72°C for 10 min, and the reaction system was performed in an Ex Taq (Takara) 40 μl reaction. The PCR products were sequenced and annotated by Shenggong Biotechnology. Subsequently, a pair of primers COI‐F and COI‐R (Table S1) was designed to amplify a partial fragment of the COI gene for 24 specimens. The total PCR volume was 25 μl containing 2.5 μl of 10× buffer (TaKaRa), 4 μl of dNTP (2.5 mM), 0.5 μl of each primer (10 μmol), 1 μl of template DNA, and 0.5 μl of Taq DNA polymerase (5 U/μl). The PCR conditions were as follows: 94°C for 2 min, 33 cycles at 94°C for 30 s, 55°C for 30 s, and 72°C for 2 min, followed by a final extension at 72°C for 10 min. The PCR products were sequenced by Shenggong Biotechnology. Moreover, we used the following primers (Rag1‐F, Rag1‐R, Table S1) for amplifying and sequencing partial fragments of the recombination activating protein 1 (Rag1) gene. The reaction system was performed in an Ex Taq (Takara) 50 μl reaction mix, and the PCR condition were as follows: 94°C for 2 min, 94°C for 30 s, 58°C for 30 s, and 72°C for 2 min for 33 cycles. The positive products were purified with a by Gel Extraction Kit (Omega) and cloned into a PMD19‐T vector (Takara) for sequencing.

2.4. Sequence analysis

The data sets of nucleotide sequences were edited and assembled by Seqman software (Zhou et al., 2012). Sequence alignments and information on nucleotide variation were conducted by MEGA6.0 (Tamura, Stecher, Peterson, Filipski, & Kumar, 2013). Comparison of the C. galbinifrons complex with other available mitogenomes including Cuora amboinensis, Cuora mouhotii, Cuora aurocapitata, Cuora cyclornata, Cuora pani, Cuora trifasciata, and Cuora flavomarginata were made using the CGView Comparison Tool (CCT). For the COI and Rag1 gene data sets, HKY+G and HKY were selected as the best fit models of evolution, respectively, by MODELTEST version 3.7 (Posada & Crandall, 1998). Maximum likelihood (ML) phylogenetic trees were implemented in MEGA6.0 (Tamura et al., 2013), and Bayesian inference (BI) trees were conducted in MRBAYES 3.1.2 (Ronquist & Huelsenbeck, 2003). For the BI tree, four simultaneous Metropolis‐coupled Monte Carlo Markov chains were used and run for 50,000,000 generations. Convergence to stationarity was evaluated using log‐likelihood values by TRACER v.1.5. The first 80% of the trees were discarded as burn‐in, and the remaining tree samples were used to generate a consensus tree. For the ML tree, the nodal support value was assessed from 100 nonparametric bootstrap replicates.

3. RESULTS

3.1. Morphological variation among the C. galbinifrons complex

A total of 24 individuals including 10 galbinifrons, nine bourreti, and five picturata were obtained from Gaoming turtle breeding farm, Foshan city, and their morphological differences were significant across these three Cuora species. As shown in Figure 1a,b, the carapace was slightly long and narrow with variations in patterns and colors. The plastron of galbinifrons was predominantly black with white growth lines on both sides (Figure 1c). On the yellow head of galbinifrons, black or brown spots were present (Figure 1d). Bourreti exhibited higher carapaces than galbinifrons, usually with three black lines distributed on the spine on both sides (Figure 1e,f). For bourreti, most of the plastron was yellow, and black patches scattered around the edge of the plastron covering not more than 75% of the scute to no spots at all (Figure 1g). The head of bourreti was similar to that of galbinifrons (Figure 1h). Cuora picturata clearly differed from galbinifrons and bourreti, with their significantly higher domed carapaces (Figure 1i,j) and golden head with reticulated grayish stripes (Figure 1l). In contrast to the plastron of galbinifrons (Figure 1c) and bourreti (Figure 1g), picturata usually has a spot size covering <75% to more than 40% of the scute (Figure 1k).

To further investigate the differences in morphometric shape among the C. galbinifrons complex, eleven morphological characters were measured and are shown in Figure 2a–c and Table 1. Based on one‐way ANOVA, morphological measurements of the plastron length (M5), anterior half width of abdominal armor (M7), posterior half anterior width of abdominal armor (M8), and throat shield width (M11) showed significant variations across the three Cuora species (Table S2). All 4 significantly different measurements of individuals from picturata revealed lower values than the measurements from individuals of galbinifrons and bourreti (Table S2). Individuals of galbinifrons, compared with bourreti, had lower values in the anterior half width of abdominal armor (M7) and posterior half anterior width of abdominal armor (M8) as well as higher values of plastron length (M5) and throat shield width (M11; Table S2). Moreover, based on principal component analysis (PCA), there was an overlap of specimens from different groups in which some individuals of galbinifrons and bourreti clustered into one group, and all picturata and some galbinifrons clustered into the other group (Figure 2d). A moderate level of interspecific difference among the C. galbinifrons complex was detected by three components in the PCA which explained 88.478% of the variation (Table 2). The first component, which explained 60.382% of the variation, suggested a difference in morphological traits, namely on M5, M7, and M8, while M11 was most representative for the second and the third components which explained 79.210% and 88.478% of the accumulated variation, respectively (Table 2).

Table 2.

Factor loadings of principal components extracted from 17 proportional characters for C. galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata

Morphometric characters PC1 PC2 PC3
Characteristic root 6.642 2.071 1.019
Variance contribution (%) 60.382 18.828 9.268
Accumulative contribution (%) 60.382 79.210 88.478
Weight (g) 0.688 0.409 −0.364
Carapace length (cm) 0.943 0.107 −0.001
Carapace width (cm) 0.657 0.631 −0.237
Body height (cm) 0.442 0.778 −0.127
Plastron length (cm) 0.969 0.058 0.208
Length of second half of the epigastrium (cm) 0.852 −0.428 −0.243
Anterior half width of abdominal armor (cm) 0.946 −0.166 0.074
Posterior half anterior width of abdominal armor (cm) 0.760 −0.356 −0.190
Posterior half posterior width of abdominal armor (cm) 0.819 −0.447 −0.165
Tortoiseshell bridge length (cm) 0.749 −0.374 0.424
Throat shield width (cm) 0.530 0.456 0.681
ANOVA p‐value .019 .172 .263
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3.2. Nuclear DNA (nuDNA) phylogenies of C. galbinifrons complex

The nuclear gene Rag1 was used to reveal the phylogenetic relationship of the three Cuora species. A total of 11 Rag1 haplotypes were detected from the three groups including 10 galbinifrons, nine bourreti, and five picturata (Figure 3a and Table S3). The length variations of 11 Rag1 haplotypes ranged from 844 to 845 bp and contained 14 variable positions, of which nine were potentially parsimony informative. As shown in Figure 3a and Table S3, Rag1‐H1 and Rag1‐H2 were detected from the groups of galbinifrons and bourreti, respectively, and their total occurrence frequency was high, up to 41.67% (Figure 3a). Subsequently, the phylogenetic relationship generated using BI and ML from 11 Rag1 haplotypes was well supported. As shown in Figure 3b, four major lineages emerged. Lineage A included only haplotype, Rag1‐H3, which was shared by galbinifrons and bourreti. Lineage B included four haplotypes, of which three haplotypes (Rag1‐H1, Rag1‐H5, and Rag1‐H10) were distributed in galbinifrons and 1 haplotype (Rag1‐H8) was from the bourreti group. Lineage C contained Rag1‐H6, Rag1‐H7, and Rag1‐H11, and all three haplotypes occurred in the group of picturata with occurrence frequencies of 8.33%, 8.33%, and 4.17%, respectively (Figure 3a,b). A total of three haplotypes (Rag1‐H2, Rag1‐H4, and Rag1‐H9) that were derived from the group of bourreti were clustered into lineage D.

Figure 3.

Figure 3

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Multiple alignment and phylogenetic analysis of Rag1 haplotypes across C. galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata. (a) Multiple alignment of Rag1 haplotypes in galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata. The identical nucleotides are shown in black shadows. Gaps (−) are introduced to optimize identity analysis. The species names are shown to the left, and the occurrence frequencies are given at the end of the alignment. (b) ML phylogeny tree of Rag1 haplotypes from galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata. Rag1 haplotypes of Mauremys mutica are used as out‐groups

3.3. Characteristics of the C. galbinifrons complex mitogenomes

In this study, the mitogenomes of the three Cuora species were sequenced and the assembled mitogenome sizes of galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata were 17,200, 17,407, and 16,598 bp in length, respectively. As in typical vertebrates, all three Cuora species mitogenomes were composed of highly conserved genes including two ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs, 12S rRNA, and 16S rRNA), 22 transfer RNAs (tRNAs), 13 protein coding genes, and a variable control region which was also known as a displacement loop (D‐loop; Table 3). Among the 22 tRNAs, eight tRNAs (tRNA‐Gln, tRNA‐Ala, tRNA‐Asn, tRNA‐Cys, tRNA‐Tyr, tRNA‐Ser, tRNA‐Glu, tRNA‐Pro) were located on the heavy (H) strand, while the remaining genes were encoded by the light (L) strand except for ND6 gene (Table 3). Twenty‐two tRNAs with lengths ranging from 67 to 78 bp were observed in these three Cuora species, and variable length polymorphisms of 22 intergenic spacers were detected from 1 to 26 bp (Table 3). Similar to most other vertebrates, ATG was the most frequent start codon for all the protein‐coding genes with only an exception in the COI gene, which had the GTG start codon (Table 3). For stop codons, six (COII, ATP8, ATP6, ND4L, ND4, ND5) of the 13 protein‐coding genes used TAA stop codons, three (ND1, ND2, and ND3) genes had TAG stop codons, two (COI and ND6) genes stop with AGG codons, and both COIII and Cytb genes were terminated through incomplete stop codon T (Table 3). The overall GC content of galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata was 42.9%, 42.9%, and 42%, respectively. The control regions of these three Cuora species were highly divergent, and the length variations ranged from 1,087 to 1,886 bp.

Table 3.

Details on the mitochondrial genome of C. galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata

Gene/element Galbinifrons/bourreti/picturata
Stranda Size GC percent (%) Start codon Stop codon Intergenic nucleotideb
tRNA‐Phe H/H/H 70/70/69 42.86/42.86/42.03 – – 0/0/0
12S‐rRNA H/H/H 965/965/963 40.73/40.83/41.95 – – 0/0/0
tRNA‐Val H/H/H 70/70/69 31.43/30.00/28.99 – – 0/0/0
16S‐rRNA H/H/H 1606/1605/1599 39.17/39.50/39.46 – – 0/0/0
tRNA‐Leu H/H/H 76/76/76 46.05/47.37/47.37 – – 0/0/0
ND1 H/H/H 972/972/972 40.23/40.12/39.92 ATG/ATG/ATG TAG/TAG/TAG −1/−1/−1
tRNA‐Ile H/H/H 70/70/70 48.57/47.14/47.14 – – −1/−1/−1
tRNA‐Gln L/L/L 71/71/71 33.80/32.39/33.80 – – −1/−1/−1
tRNA‐Met H/H/H 69/69/69 39.13/39.13/39.13 – – 0/0/0
ND2 H/H/H 1041/1041/1041 40.15/40.25/39.19 ATG/ATG/ATG TAG/TAG/TAG −2/−2/−2
tRNA‐Trp H/H/H 77/77/78 45.45/45.45/47.44 – – 1/1/1
tRNA‐Ala L/L/L 69/69/69 30.43/28.99/30.43 – – 1/1/1
tRNA‐Asn L/L/L 73/73/73 42.47/42.47/45.21 – – 26/26/26
tRNA‐Cys L/L/L 66/66/67 33.33/33.33/31.34 – – 0/0/0
tRNA‐Tyr L/L/L 71/71/71 40.85/40.85/40.85 – – 1/1/1
COI H/H/H 1548/1548/1548 42.05/41.99/41.73 GTG/GTG/GTG AGG/AGG/AGG −9/−9/−9
tRNA‐Ser L/L/L 71/71/71 42.25/42.25/42.25 – – 2/2/2
tRNA‐Asp H/H/H 70/70/70 30.00/30.00/30.00 – – 0/0/0
COII H/H/H 687/687/687 37.41/37.70/38.28 ATG/ATG/ATG TAA/TAA/TAA 2/2/2
tRNA‐Lys H/H/H 73/73/73 43.84/43.84/43.84 – – 1/1/1
ATP8 H/H/H 168/168/168 32.74/32.74/33.33 ATG/ATG/ATG TAA/TAA/TAA −22/−22/−22
ATP6 H/H/H 696/696/693 36.49/36.35/37.23 ATG/ATG/ATG TAA/TAA/TAA −1/−1/−1
COIII H/H/H 784/784/784 41.96/41.58/42.60 ATG/ATG/ATG T/T/T 0/0/0
tRNA‐Gly H/H/H 68/68/68 29.41/27.94/32.35 – – 0/0/0
ND3 H/H/H 351/351/351 36.47/36.75/37.32 ATG/ATG/ATG TAG/TAG/TAG −2/−2−2/
tRNA‐Arg H/H/H 71/71/71 35.21/35.21/35.21 – – −1/−1/−1
ND4L H/H/H 300/300/300 41.67/42.00/41.00 ATG/ATG/ATG TAA/TAA/TAA −7/−7/−7
ND4 H/H/H 1377/1377/1377 39.22/39.14/39.72 ATG/ATG/ATG TAA/TAA/TAA 12/12/12
tRNA‐His H/H/H 70/70/70 28.57/30.00/27.14 – – 0/0/0
tRNA‐Ser H/H/H 67/67/67 44.78/44.78/43.28 – – −1/−1/−1
tRNA‐Leu H/H/H 72/72/72 38.89/38.89/38.89 – – 0/0/0
ND5 H/H/H 1806/1806/1806 39.04/38.54/38.37 ATG/ATG/ATG TAA/TAA/TAA −5/−5/−5
ND6 L/L/L 525/525/525 39.43/39.24/38.48 ATG/ATG/ATG AGG/AGG/AGG 0/0/0
tRNA‐Glu L/L/L 68/68/68 42.65/42.65/38.24 – – 4/4/4
Cytb H/H/H 1144/1144/1144 43.44/43.36/42.83 ATG/ATG/ATG T/T/T 0/0/0
tRNA‐Thr H/H/H 72/72/72 37.50/37.50/34.72 – – 1/1/1
tRNA‐Pro L/L/L 69/69/70 42.03/40.58/35.71 – – 0/0/0
D‐loop H/H/H 1678/1886/1087 26.28/24.76/28.79 – – 0/0/0
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a

H, heavy strand; L, light strand.

b

Numbers indicate nucleotides separating two adjacent genes, while negative numbers indicate overlapping nucleotides.

3.4. Comparison with closely related turtle species

Sequence alignment analysis of mitogenomes based on seven turtles species closely related to these three Cuora species including Cuora amboinensis, Cuora mouhotii, Cuora aurocapitata, Cuora cyclornata, Cuora pani, Cuora trifasciata, and Cuora flavomarginata in previous reports together with the current study revealed that the genome composition and gene arrangements were similar in all 10 turtle species that were compared (Figure 4a). Similar to the three Cuora species, the length and genetic variation were mainly located in the control region. The sequence identity at the nucleotide level between bourreti and the other turtle species varied between 83.47% and 96.11% (Figure 4a). To pursue the phylogenetic relationship of the 10 turtle species, both ML and BI trees were constructed according to their mitogenomes. Only the ML tree is shown in Figure 4b, as both BI and ML tree produced the same topology and well supported each other. Both matriline A and matriline B consisted of only one species (C. amboinensis and C. mouhotii, respectively). The sister group of matriline B and matriline C, contained C. cyclornata and the three Cuora species sampled in this study. Four species, C. aurocapitata, C. pani, C. trifasciata, and C. flavomarginata clustered into matriline D. The results from the topological trees of these species were consistent with the reported traditional phylogenies (Li et al., 2015; Spinks et al., 2012).

Figure 4.

Figure 4

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(a) Graphical map of the mitochondrial genome alignment results in nucleotide identity between C. bourreti and nine other turtle species based on the CGView comparison tool (CCT). Closeness to the outside of the circle indicates closer phylogeny to the reference sequence (bourreti). The rings labeled 1–9 represent alignment results of C. bourreti against C. galbinifrons, C. picturata, C. mouhotii, C. flavomarginata, C. trifasciata, C. pani, C. aurocapitata, C. cyclornata, and C. amboinensis. (b) ML phylogenetic tree of 10 Cuora species. The mitochondrial genome of Pelodiscus sinensis is used as an out‐group

3.5. MtDNA phylogenies of the C. galbinifrons complex

In addition to nuclear gene Rag1, we generated sequence data for the partial COI gene to further investigate the genetic differentiation across the three Cuora species groups. As shown in Figure 5, a total of 19 mtDNA COI haplotypes including 10 haplotypes currently identified from samples in this study, seven haplotypes obtained from previous reports (Spinks & Shaffer, 2007; Stuart & Parham, 2004), and two shared haplotypes were identified from 21 galbinifrons, 16 bourreti, and 10 picturata (Figure 5a and Table S4). Variable length polymorphisms were also observed from 621 to 629 bp, and these 19 haplotypes included 47 variable positions, of which 30 were parsimony informative. Among the 19 haplotypes, the highest occurrence frequency, COI‐H3 (23.40%) was only present in galbinifrons groups (Figure 5a and Table S4). COI‐H2, with a 21.28% occurrence frequency, originated directly from picturata. There was only one haplotype, COI‐H1, with a 14.89% occurrence frequency, which was shared by individuals from galbinifrons and bourreti groups (Figure 5a and Table S4). The remaining haplotypes with occurrence frequencies range from 2.13% to 4.26% were identified only in individuals of either bourreti or galbinifrons (Figure 5a and Table S4). The constructed BI and ML trees based on the mtDNA COI haplotypes resolved extremely similar matrilines and only the ML tree is shown in Figure 5b. The in‐group consisted of six highly supported matrilines. Matriline A, the sister group of all other matrilines, contained only one haplotype of picturata. Matriline B, the sister group of matrilines C, D, E, and F, included groups of galbinifrons and bourreti (Figure 5b). The remaining haplotypes of galbinifrons and bourreti were grouped in matrilines C and D and matrilines E and F, respectively (Figure 5b).

Figure 5.

Figure 5

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Multiple alignment and phylogenetic analysis of COI haplotypes across C. galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata. (a) Multiple alignment of COI haplotypes in C. galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata. The identical nucleotides are shown in black shadows. Gaps (−) are introduced to optimize identity analysis. The species names are shown to the left, and the occurrence frequencies are given at the end of the alignment. (b) ML phylogeny tree of COI haplotypes from C. galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata. COI haplotypes of Mauremys mutica are used as out‐groups

4. DISCUSSION

Inconsistencies between taxonomy and phylogenetic patterns have been revealed to be common among closely related species due to divergent markers, hybridization and introgression of wild populations, arbitrary sections of clines, artificial subdivisions of species or a random combination of these factors (Naksri, Tong, Lauprasert, Suteethorn, & Claude, 2013; Petit & Excoffier, 2009; Zhang, Nie, Huang, Pu, & Zhang, 2009; Zink & Barrowclough, 2008). Defining the interspecific relationships and species boundaries for Cuora has been a challenging endeavor for the systematic and conservation communities. Moreover, the concept of species and its criteria are widely controversial in previous literature (Meier, 2000). Here, we adopt the version of the phylogenetic species concept proposed by Crowe (1999), wherein trivial characters were avoided to define evolutionary units, and multiple independent lines of evidence including morphology, ecology, behavior, molecules, or physiology were investigated to determine species. In this study, morphological differences did not entirely separate the three species (Figure 1). Using PCA on 11 morphological characters of the C. galbinifrons complex, we found that bourreti partially overlapped in their morphological characters with the other two species (Figure 2). In addition, similar sets of relationships based on analyses of nuclear Rag1 gene and mitochondrial COI gene indicated that picturata was well defined as a full species, but did not resolve galbinifrons and bourreti into two distinct groups (Figures 3 and 5). Our findings were consistent with osteological comparison of the C. galbinifrons complex (Fritz et al., 2006) but were slightly different from the hypothesis of Stuart and Parham (2004) which rendered galbinifrons, bourreti, and picturata as monophyletic, evolutionary lineages. Therefore, together with external morphology and molecular analyses, we recommend maintaining picturata as a full species, while galbinifrons and bourreti seem to be only subspecifically distinct. It is possible that species are gradually forming and will ultimately evolve into full species through the accumulation of variation but this is not evident yet.

Four possible explanations are suggested to explain the lack of remarkable divergence between galbinifrons and bourreti. First, as clarified by Fritz et al. (2006), galbinifrons and bourreti could be conspecific due to a consistent peculiar state in the bony carapace regarding the articulation of the rib tips with the peripheral plates, although differences in the shape of the shell and coloration of soft body parts were presented as attributable to polymorphism or geographic variation. Moreover, bourreti might have recently diverged from galbinifrons, and strong selection may have accelerated morphological differentiation while mutation rates of neutral genetic markers do not always reflect morphological differences in the process of phylogenetic evolution (Stuart & Parham, 2004). This lack of phylogenetic structure and limited lineage differentiation on mitochondrial DNA divergence are common among Hemiculter leucisculus from a lake complex in the middle Yangtze (Cheng et al., 2018) and a cluster of populations of the “Cumaná guppy” (Poecilia reticulata Peters; Alexander & Breden, 2010). In addition, as an integral part of the evolutionary process, hybridization and introgression were extensively found across a wide range of taxa in nature (Baldassarre, White, Jordan, & Webster, 2015; Kidd, Bowman, Lesbarrères, & Schulte‐Hostedde, 2010; Stuart & Parham, 2007; Twyford & Ennos, 2012). In terms of geographical distribution, picturata is currently only known from southern Phu Yen and Khanh Hoa provinces in southern central Vietnam (McCormack, Shi, & Stuart, 2016), and galbinifrons is found in North Central Vietnam, northeastern Laos, Hainan Island, and Guangxi Province of China (McCormack, Stuart, & Blanck, 2016), bourreti is distributed in northeastern Cambodia, eastern Laos, and central Vietnam south to northern Phu Yen Province (McCormack & Stuart, 2016) which revealed a partial intergradation area with that of galbinifrons (Stuart & Parham, 2004, Naksri et al., 2013). Therefore, it is reasonable to maintain picturata as a full species and assume galbinifrons and bourreti as subspecies of C. galbinifrons due to their coherent distribution area with no real boundaries. In addition, the overlap of distribution areas between galbinifrons and bourreti provided opportunities and possibilities for their hybridization, and hybrids from the same maternal species in captive or wild populations might generate highly homologous or identical mitochondrial DNA sequences. Finally, the relationship among closely related species might be obscured by variable morphological indices or molecular markers such as different nuclear and mitochondrial markers implemented in Carassius species complex (Liu, Jiang, et al., 2017; Luo et al., 2014), Quasipaa boulengeri (Yan et al., 2013), and Neosalanx taihuensis (Zhao et al., 2008). As a consequence, multiple molecular markers or genomic DNA of populations and larger sample sizes of known provenance will help to further investigate their taxonomic status.

The identification of the C. galbinifrons as full species with C. g. bourreti as its subspecies and C. picturata as a valid species plays an important role in the protection of their germplasm resources. The analysis of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA, in combination with morphology, led us to maintain picturata as full species and recommend galbinifrons and bourreti as subspecies of C. galbinifrons. Captive breeding efforts should be used to prevent genetic contamination and maintain the integrity of these phyletic evolutions by propagating them separately under artificial conditions. Moreover, China and Vietnam are the top two countries in need of effective turtle conservation in Asia (Stuart & Thorbjarnarson, 2003). Maintaining picturata as full species but downgrading bourreti as a subspecies of C. galbinifrons decreases the number of species in the Cuora genus, but will increase awareness of species‐level protection opportunities and conservation activities of C. galbinifrons. However, devastation of the C. galbinifrons complex from overexploitation for sale has not stopped, which makes further investigation of great significance across the spectrum of ecology, thremmatology, conservation, and evolution biology.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Xiaoli Liu conducted the experiments and prepared the manuscript; Wei Li, Zhaoyang Ye analyzed the data; Xiaoyou Hong collected the samples; Xinping Zhu designed the study and wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Supporting information

 

Click here for additional data file. (18.4KB, docx)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the Pearl River Fisheries Research Institute for the samples. This research work was supported by Science and Technology Program Project of Guangdong Provincial “South China Freshwater Fishery Biological Germplasm Resource Bank” (2019B030316029), Construction Project of Innovation Team of Modern Agricultural Industry Technology System in Guangdong Province with Agricultural Products as Unit “Organizing and Developing Innovation Team of Freshwater Fish Industry Technology System” (2019KJ150), Central Public‐interest Scientific Institution Basal Research Fund, CAFS (NO. 2014A11), and National Basic Research Special Foundation of China (2013FY110700).

Liu X, Li W, Ye Z, Zhu Y, Hong X, Zhu X. Morphological characterization and phylogenetic relationships of Indochinese box turtles—The Cuora galbinifrons complex. Ecol Evol. 2019;9:13030–13042. 10.1002/ece3.5680

Liu and Li contributed equally to this work.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data are provided in Supporting Information Appendix S1.

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Supplementary Materials

 

Click here for additional data file. (18.4KB, docx)

Data Availability Statement

The data are provided in Supporting Information Appendix S1.

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