Data from: The role of climatic and geological events in generating diversity in Ethiopian grass frogs (genus Ptychadena)

Ethiopia is a world biodiversity hotspot and harbours levels of biotic endemism unmatched in the Horn of Africa, largely due to topographic—and thus habitat—complexity, which results from a very active geological and climatic history. Among Ethiopian vertebrate fauna, amphibians harbour the highest levels of endemism, making amphibians a compelling system for the exploration of the impacts of Ethiopia's complex abiotic history on biotic diversification. Grass frogs of the genus Ptychadena are notably diverse in Ethiopia, where they have undergone an evolutionary radiation. We used molecular data and expanded taxon sampling to test for cryptic diversity and to explore diversification patterns in both the highland radiation and two widespread lowland Ptychadena. Species delimitation results support the presence of nine highland species and four lowland species in our dataset, and divergence dating suggests that both geologic events and climatic fluctuations played a complex and confounded role in the diversification of Ptychadena in Ethiopia. We rectify the taxonomy of the endemic P. neumanni species complex, elevating one formally synonymized name and describing three novel taxa. Finally, we describe two novel lowland Ptychadena species that occur in Ethiopia and may be more broadly distributed.埃塞俄比亚是全球生物多样性热点地区，拥有非洲之角区域无与伦比的生物特有性水平，这在很大程度上源于其活跃的地质与气候历史所造就的地形复杂性，进而衍生出多样的生境。在埃塞俄比亚的脊椎动物区系中，两栖类的特有性水平最高，这使得两栖类成为探究埃塞俄比亚复杂非生物历史对生物多样化过程影响的理想研究系统。褶蛙属（Ptychadena）的草蛙类群在埃塞俄比亚物种多样性极高，且在此区域经历了适应性辐射演化。本研究借助分子数据与扩展类群采样方案，对高原适应性辐射类群以及两个广布的低地褶蛙属类群的隐存多样性进行了检验，并探究了其多样化模式。物种界定结果显示，本数据集中共包含9个高原物种与4个低地物种；分化时间估算表明，地质事件与气候波动在埃塞俄比亚褶蛙属类群的多样化过程中均发挥了复杂且相互交织的作用。我们对特有新曼褶蛙（Ptychadena neumanni）物种复合体的分类学进行了修订：恢复1个曾被正式列为异名的分类单元，并描述了3个新类群。最后，本研究还描述了2个分布于埃塞俄比亚的低地褶蛙属新物种，这类群的分布范围可能更为广泛。