Description of two new species of Hemiphyllodactylus(Reptilia: Gekkonidae) from karst landscapes in Yunnan, China, highlights complex conservation needs

Karst habitats are hotspots of diversity and endemism. Their naturally fragmented distributions across broad geographic landscapes have led to the complex array of smaller evolutionary ecosystems that present unique challenges from a conservation perspective.Comprehensivebiodiversity assessments of karst habitats have revealed that these ecosystems contain an almost unparalleled level of endemism, and many site-restricted species remain undescribed, thus posing considerable challenges for effective conservation management.Small rock-dwelling species, such as geckos, may be particularly prone to such isolation. In this paper, we discuss one such genus, i.e.,Hemiphyllodactylus, and explore its diversity across karst landforms in Yunnan Province, southwestern China. Based on morphological and genetic data, we describe two new species of Hemiphyllodactylus from karst habitats in Simao District and Yanshan County. A phylogenetic tree for Hemiphyllodactylus was constructed using 1?039 base pairs(bp) of the mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 gene(ND2). The Simao and Yanshan specimens can be distinguished from all other congeners within their respective subclades based on uncorrected genetic pairwise distances greater than 6.3% and 4.3%respectively, as well as significant morphological differences. The discovery and description of these two new species brings the total number of described Hemiphyllodactylus species in China to 14and indicates many more undescribed species from unsurveyed karst regions await discovery.Our findings suggest that karst ecosystems in Yunnan support a higher diversity of Hemiphyllodactylus than previously known.This study also highlights the importance of karst ecosystems as refugia for sitespecific endemic species and the need for heightened conservation efforts.

Strong intraspecific trait variation in a tropical dominant tree species along an elevational gradient

Functional trait variation of plant species includes both inter-and intraspecific variation;however,traitbased plant ecology generally considers only interspecific variation while ignoring intraspecific variation.One reason for this neglect is that intraspecific variation may be negligible when compared to interspecific variation;however,direct comparisons between inter-and intraspecific variation of plant species are lacking,especially in tropical forests.Here we investigated intraspecific leaf trait variation(leaf area,specific leaf area,leaf thickness,leaf density,leaf chlorophyll content) of Pittosporopsis kerrii Craib(Icacinaceae),the most abundant tree species in the Xishuangbanna tropical seasonal rainforest in southwestern China,along an elevational gradient(703-824 m).We found a substantial range of intraspecific variation in P.kerrii that was never less than 22.1% of range of the interspecific variation among 462 tree species reported before in the same community.Moreover,with increased elevation,both leaf thickness and density increased and specific leaf area decreased significantly.It could be more important for the individuals of P.kerrii to produce thicker and denser leaves to tolerate environmental stress(e.g,soil water availability) rather than having high growth rates at the places with higher elevation in the Xishuangbanna tropical seasonal rainforest.