RT Journal Article
T1 Hidden in the sand: Phylogenomics unravel an unexpected evolutionary history for the desert-adapted vipers of the genus Cerastes
A1 Mochales Riaño, Gabriel
A1 Burriel Carranza, Bernat
A1 Barros, Margarida Isabel
A1 Velo Antón, Guillermo
A1 Talavera, Adrián
A1 Spilani, Loukia
A1 Tejero Cicuéndez, Hector
A1 Crochet, Pierre André
A1 Piris Martín, Alberto
A1 García Cardenete, Luis
A1 Busais, Salem
A1 Els, Johannes
A1 Shobrak, Mohammed
A1 Brito, José Carlos
A1 Šmíd, Jiří
A1 Carranza, Salvador
A1 Martínez Freiría, Fernando
AB The desert vipers of the genus Cerastes are a small clade of medically important venomous snakes within the family Viperidae. According to published morphological and molecular studies, the group is comprised by four species: two morphologically similar and phylogenetically sister taxa, the African horned viper (Cerastes cerastes) and the Arabian horned viper (Cerastes gasperettii); a more distantly related species, the Saharan sand viper (Cerastes vipera), and the enigmatic Böhme’s sand viper (Cerastes boehmei), only known from a single specimen in captivity allegedly captured in Central Tunisia. In this study, we sequenced one mitochondrial marker (COI) as well as genome-wide data (ddRAD sequencing) from 28 and 41 samples, respectively, covering the entire distribution range of the genus to explore the population genomics, phylogenomic relationships and introgression patterns within the genus Cerastes. Additionally, and to provide insights into the mode of diversification of the group, we carried out niche overlap analyses considering climatic and habitat variables. Both nuclear phylogenomic reconstructions and population structure analyses have unveiled an unexpected evolutionary history for the genus Cerastes, which sharply contradicts the morphological similarities and previously published mitochondrial approaches. Cerastes cerastes and C. vipera are recovered as sister taxa whilst C. gasperettii is a sister taxon to the clade formed by these two species. We found a relatively high niche overlap (OI > 0.7) in both climatic and habitat variables between C. cerastes and C. vipera, contradicting a potential scenario of sympatric speciation. These results are in line with the introgression found between the northwestern African populations of C. cerastes and C. vipera. Finally, our genomic data confirms the existence of a lineage of C. cerastes in Arabia. All these results highlight the importance of genome-wide data over few genetic markers to study the evolutionary history of species.
PB Elsevier
SN 1055-7903
YR 2024
FD 2024
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/120660
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/120660
LA eng
NO Mochales-Riaño, G., Burriel-Carranza, B., Barros, M. I., Velo-Antón, G., Talavera, A., Spilani, L., Tejero-Cicuéndez, H., Crochet, P.-A., Piris, A., García-Cardenete, L., Busais, S., Els, J., Shobrak, M., Brito, J. C., Šmíd, J., Carranza, S., & Martínez-Freiría, F. (2024). Hidden in the sand: Phylogenomics unravel an unexpected evolutionary history for the desert-adapted vipers of the genus Cerastes. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 191, 107979. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2023.107979
NO This work was supported by grants PGC2018-098290-B-I00 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE), Spain, PID2021-128901NB-I00 (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF, A way of making Europe), Spain, and grant 2021-SGR-00751 from the Departament de Recerca i Universitats from the Generalitat de Catalunya, Spain to SC. GM-R is supported by an FPI grant from the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Spain (PRE2019-088729), BB-C is supported by FPU grant from Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Spain (FPU18/04742), AT is supported by “la Caixa” doctoral fellowship program (LCF/BQ/DR20/11790007), HT-C is supported by a “Juan de la Cierva - Formación” postdoctoral fellowship (FJC2021-046832-I) funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR, GV-A was supported by the FCT (CEECIND/00937/2018) and recently by a Ramón y Cajal research grant (Ref. RYC-2019-026959-I/AEI/10.13039/501100011033), JŠ was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR) under grant number 22-12757S and by the Charles University Research Centre under grant number 204069 and FM-F and JCB are supported by FCT - Fundação para a Ciencia e Tecnologia de Portugal (DL57/2016/CP1440/CT0010, CEECINST/00014/2018/CP1512/CT0001, respectively).
NO Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (España)
NO Generalitat de Catalunya
NO Fundacion La Caixa
NO European Commission
NO Czech Science Foundation
NO Charles University Research Centre
NO Fundação para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (Portugal)
DS Docta Complutense
RD 9 abr 2026