Аннотация:Phrynocephalus is one of the largest genera of Agamidae family, but it`s taxonomy is
still far from being clear. The genus consists of 26–50 species, with many lineages
having an uncertain status. We obtained 275 sequences of COI gene and reconstructed
phylogenetic dendrograms in MrBayes (BA) and Treefinder (ML). Species
delimitation was performed using bGMYC (Bayesian General Mixed Yule
Coalescent), ABGD (Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery), PTP (Puasson Tree
Processes) under hs (heuristic search), and ML (maximim likelihood). Uncorrected
p-distances were calculated in MEGA. Our results demonstrate a high level of cryptic
diversity within Phrynocephalus, with 54 to 75 species being detected by species
delimitation algorithms. However, these numbers seem to be overestimated and
influenced by algorithm sensitivity and hence more likely represent the numbers of
subspecies rather than species. According to our results, the most realistic is ABGD,
PTP hs is, on the contrary, the most fragmentizing method. Algorithms used in this
study have proved to be good for preliminary analysis of group diversity. They
allowed us to discover high levels of divergence in several species complexes and to
automatically detect phylogenetic lineages having potentially subspecific status. For
some species, the number of such lineages is especially high: Ph. interscapularis, Ph.
scutellatus, Ph. ocellatus etc. Frequency distribution of uncorrected p-distances
shows the gap of 5% between subspecies and species and the gap of 9% between
species complexes.