Shifts in reproductive mode represent key evolutionary innovations that shape species' life histories and evolutionary trajectories. Species showing bimodal reproductive strategies with multiple independent origins offer a rare opportunity to gain insights into the adaptive processes and mechanisms underlying convergent traits. The fire salamander, Salamandra salamandra , is the only amphibian exhibiting intraspecific variatio...

In the Pleistocene, climatic changes resulted in cycles of sea‐level fluctuation that periodically fragmented islands into aggregate island complexes. These temporary saltwater barriers between islands within an island bank had the potential to decrease migration between populations on separate islands, resulting in increased genetic divergence and potentially speciation. In the Lesser Antilles, Anolis lizards (anoles) are dis...

Shifting precipitation regimes driven by global climate change can alter vertebrate behavior and host‐symbiont relationships, potentially compromising host resistance to pathogen invasion. In Brazil's Atlantic Forest, a biodiversity hotspot, prior research identified drought as a key factor disrupting the skin microbiome, contributing to a die‐off of pumpkin toadlets due to the invasive waterborne fungal pathogen Batrachochytr...

Cryptogenic species are those whose native and introduced ranges are unknown. The extent and long history of human migration rendered numerous species cryptogenic. Incomplete knowledge regarding the origin and native habitat of a species poses problems for conservation management and may confound ecological and evolutionary studies. The Lesser Antilles pose a particular challenge with regard to cryptogenic species because thes...

Secondary sympatry amongst 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 intraspecific divergence in three giant tree frog species whose distributions stretch across West and C...

A period of isolation in allopatry typically precedes local adaptation and subsequent divergence among lineages. Alternatively, locally adapted phenotypes may arise and persist in the face of gene flow, resulting in strong correlations between ecologically‐relevant phenotypic variation and corresponding environmental gradients. Quantifying genetic, ecological, and phenotypic divergence in such lineages can provide insights int...

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-021-10109-w

Animals with biphasic lifecycles often inhabit different visual environments across ontogeny. Many frogs and toads (Amphibia: Anura) have free-living aquatic larvae (tadpoles) that metamorphose into adults that inhabit a range of aquatic and terrestrial environments. Ecological differences influence eye size across species, but these relationships have not yet been explored across life stages in an ontogenetic allometric conte...

Aim 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 in a widespread rain forest species, the African foam‐nest treefrog Chiroma...

Aim To investigate how putative barriers, forest refugia, and ecological gradients across the lower Guineo‐Congolian rain forest shape genetic and phenotypic divergence in the leaf‐folding frog Afrixalus paradorsalis , and examine the role of adjacent land bridge and sky‐islands in diversification. Location The Lower Guineo‐Congolian Forest, the Cameroonian Volcanic Line (CVL), and Bioko Island, Central Africa. Taxon Afrixalus...

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 stability, and phylogeographic divergence within three reed frog species comple...

Aim To infer the colonization history of reed frog species endemic to the oceanic islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, Hyperolius molleri and H. thomensis , we quantified phylogeographical structure in the closely related H. cinnamomeoventris species complex, which is broadly distributed across continental Central Africa. Location The Lower Guineo‐Congolian Forest and the Gulf of Guinea islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, Central A...

Aim We investigated how Pleistocene refugia and recent ( c. 12,000 years ago) sea level incursions shaped genetic differentiation in mainland and island populations of the Scinax perpusillus treefrog group. Location Brazilian Atlantic Forest, São Paulo state, south‐eastern Brazil. Methods Using mitochondrial and microsatellite loci, we examined population structure and genetic diversity in three species from the S. perpusillus...