On systematics and phylogeny of toads of genus Bombina in China

The fire bellied toad genus, Bombina, with seven species, which spread throughout various Eurasiatic areas. There are five species of the genus distributed in China. The taxonomy and systematics of Bombina was quite confusing. The phylogenetic relationship within this genus had nor been fully worked out, which, to some extent, should be due to the lack of data for the five species in China. This work takes out to investigate phylogenetic and classifacation of chinese menbers of the genus.Thirteen osteological, external morphological and chromosomal characters were analyzed A hypotheses of phylogenetic relationships of the four species is presented. Two groups(clades)are present within the genus: one contains the species B.fortinuptialis. B. maxima and B. microdeladigitora; B. orientalis share the other clade. In the first clade, B. fortinuptialis and B. microdeladigitora are closely related. Subspecific status fo fortinuptialis was suggested, because its specific status was weakly supported by morphological and karyological evidences. After comparing 11 external measurements, we foud apparent varieties in different populations of B.maxima. No geographic varieties of other species were found.Several authors studied relationships of Bombina with other discoglossid groups, and some separated it to erect different families. We summarized the former morphological, karyological, as well as molecular evidences, and considered it's still valid to retain bombina under governing of Discoglossidae.Finally, we interpreted speciation of Bombina by correlating it to paleo-geological evidence.