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Systematics And Species Delimitation In New Guinea Skink Species Complexes (Squamata: Scincidae), Eric Nikolaus Rittmeyer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Though among the most controversial topics in systematic and evolutionary biology, species are a fundamental unit in biology, and are utilized by and critical to a wide variety of studies in the life sciences. Despite this importance, little work has focused on developing and examining objective methods for species delimitation until recently. Further, New Guinea and the surrounding regions are among the most diverse and geologically complex regions globally, yet the region remains poorly explored biologically, and little work has examined the evolutionary history of the fauna in the region. To investigate the influence of factors such as sampling intensity, …