Diversity of Water Frogs spp. in Turkey: Do Mating Vocalizations Mirror Nominal Taxon Delimitation?

Informed conservation management requires exact knowledge on the species diversity of the taxon group in focus within a geographic area, specifically on the occurrence of endemics. In Turkey, there are three water frog taxa of the genus ; one is the widespread , the other two are geographically restricted to either Thrace () or to the Anatolian Lake district (). The species status of the Beyşehir frog has been questioned since its proposal in 2001. We recorded and analyzed advertisement and release vocalizations at representative populations of taxa to assess the degree of inter-taxon differentiation and the potential for premating isolation. We found that and have much more similar vocalizations than both have compared to . A functional bioacoustic premating barrier between and in syntopy does not exist according to our study. The low degree of bioacoustic differentiation mirrors earlier genetic, karyological, and morphological findings. We conclude that the Beyşehir frogs do not deserve species status and that should be considered a junior synonym of . Therefore, the number of endemic anuran species in Turkey decreases to one.