Diversity and phylogenetic relationships of haemosporidian and hemogregarine parasites in Australian lizards.

Apicomplexa is a large monophyletic phylum of unicellular, parasitic organisms. Reptiles are hosts to both haemosporidian (Haemosporida) and hemogregarine (Eucoccidiorida) apicomplexan blood parasites. Within reptiles our understanding of their diversity remains limited, with a paucity of information from Australia, despite a high diversity of squamates (snakes and lizards).

Expression of a hindlimb-determining factor Pitx1 in the forelimb of the lizard Pogona vitticeps during morphogenesis.

With over 9000 species, squamates, which include lizards and snakes, are the largest group of reptiles and second-largest order of vertebrates, spanning a vast array of appendicular skeletal morphology. As such, they provide a promising system for examining developmental and molecular processes underlying limb morphology. Using the central bearded dragon (Pogona vitticeps) as the primary study model, we examined limb morphometry throughout embryonic development and characterized the expression of three known developmental genes (GHR, Pitx1 and Shh) from early embryonic stage through to hatchling stage via reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC).

An Exon-Capture System for the Entire Class Ophiuroidea.

Exon-capture studies have typically been restricted to relatively shallow phylogenetic scales due primarily to hybridization constraints. Here, we present an exon-capture system for an entire class of marine invertebrates, the Ophiuroidea, built upon a phylogenetically diverse transcriptome foundation. The system captures approximately 90% of the 1,552 exon target, across all major lineages of the quarter-billion-year-old extant crown group.

The role of integrative taxonomy in the conservation management of cryptic species: the taxonomic status of endangered earless dragons (Agamidae: Tympanocryptis) in the grasslands of Queensland, Australia.

Molecular phylogenetics is increasingly highlighting the prevalence of cryptic species, where morphologically similar organisms have long independent evolutionary histories. When such cryptic species are known to be declining in numbers and are at risk of extinction due to a range of threatening processes, the disjunction between molecular systematics research and conservation policy becomes a significant problem. We investigate the taxonomic status of Tympanocryptis populations in Queensland, which have previously been assigned to T.