Taxonomy of the Rhampholeon boulengeri Complex (Sauria: Chamaeleonidae): Five New Species from Central Africa's Albertine Rift.

In a recent molecular study, the pygmy chameleon Rhampholeon boulengeri Steindachner, 1911 was shown to contain six genetically distinct, but phenotypically cryptic lineages. Phylogenetic analyses of genetic data demonstrated that several well-supported clades occurred in non-overlapping elevational ranges across the Albertine Rift in Central Africa. In order to resolve the taxonomy of the R.

Species Assembly of Highland Anuran Communities in Equatorial Africa (Virunga Massif): Soundscape, Acoustic Niches, and Partitioning.

The soundscape is a complex arrangement of sounds originating from animals and the environment. It is considered a reliable proxy for ecosystem niche structure at the community level. Acoustic communities of anuran species include advertising males, which compete in acoustic space for conspecific females.

Elevated alpha diversity in disturbed sites obscures regional decline and homogenization of amphibian taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity.

Loss of natural habitat due to land-use change is one of the major threats to biodiversity worldwide. It not only affects the diversity of local species communities (alpha diversity) but can also lead to large-scale homogenization of community composition (reduced beta diversity) and loss of regional diversity (gamma diversity), but these effects are still rarely investigated. We assessed the impact of land-use change on taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity of amphibians in Rwanda, both on the local (community-level) and regional scale (country-wide).

Systematics of the Central African Spiny Reed Frog Afrixalus laevis (Anura: Hyperoliidae), with the description of two new species from the Albertine Rift.

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 herpetologists have previously suggested that these disjunct populations represent distinct species, and herein, we utilize an integrative taxonomic approach with molecular and morphological data to reconcile the taxonomy of these spiny reed frogs. We sequenced 1554 base pairs of the 16S and RAG1 genes from 34 samples of A.

A new African species of parasitic Dero (Annelida, Clitellata, Naididae) in the urinary tract of reed frogs.

A new species of naidid oligochaete, Dero rwandae, detected in the bladder and the Wolffian ducts of reed frogs Hyperolius kivuensis from Rwanda, is described. Until now, D. bauchiensis was the only endoparasitic Dero known to infect African frogs infesting the eyes and Harderian glands.