Figure 1.
Map of Isle of Pines (French: Île des Pins) and Brosse Islet (in black), New Caledonia (Pacific Ocean).
Figure 2.
X-ray microtomography and 3D visualization.
Top: anterior view of the body of the Phoboscincus bocourti captured during the November 2005 expedition to Brosse Islet. Bottom: volume rendering of the skull of the P. bocourti holotype - (a) Lateral view of skull including first vertebrae and hyoid apparatus; (b) Magnification of dentary and maxillary areas; (c) Morphology of dentary and maxillary teeth; (d) Lateral and dorsal view of dentary.
Figure 3.
Variation in the δ15N and δ13C values (mean ± SE) of terrestrial reptiles.
Abbreviations of lizard species are as follows: Bavayia cyclura (Bc), Caledoniscincus haplorhinus (Ch), Lioscincus nigrofasciolatum (Ln), Caledoniscincus austrocaledonicus (Ca), Phoboscincus bocourti (Pb), and Rhacodactylus leachianus (Rl). Samples were also obtained for the sea krait Laticauda saintgironsi (Ls). Different letters indicate significant differences in the isotopic signatures of the different species (P < 0.05) as determined using a Tukey’s HSD post-hoc test. Reptile species have been ordered by relative trophic nitrogen enrichment.
Figure 4.
Mean ± SE of δ15N and δ13C values of animals and plants sampled on Brousse Islet.
Plants are placed in a single group. Abbreviations for the terrestrial reptiles and sea krait are as follows: Bavayia cyclura (Bc), Caledoniscincus haplorhinus (Ch), Lioscincus nigrofasciolatum (Ln), Caledoniscincus austrocaledonicus (Ca), Phoboscincus bocourti (Pb), Rhacodactylus leachianus (Rl) and Laticauda saintgironsi (Ls). Invertebrates: Isopoda (I), Coleoptera (C1 and C2), Dyctioptera (D1), Diptera (D2), Julidae (J), Hymenoptera (H), Lepidoptera (L), Scolopendra (S1), Scorpiones (S2), Orthoptera (O), Annelida (A1), Araneae (A2), Gastropoda (G), Paguridae (P), Brachyura (B), and seakrait tick (T). Rodents: Rattus exulens (Re) and Mus musculus (Mm). Birds are grouped as terrestrial birds (TB) and seabirds (SB). The isotopic values of terrestrial reptiles are represented by black, filled points. The grey point is the mean discrimination-corrected isotopic value of P. bocourti (Pbcorrected), which is superimposed onto its prey to visually illustrate its possible diet and trophic relationships. Fractionation values are 1‰ for δ13C and 3‰ for δ15N.
Figure 5.
Bayesian Inference tree of the scincid species sampled based on partial sequencing of the 12S and 16S rDNA genes.
The phylogram was obtained using Bayesian inference. Node values are the posterior probabilities recovered from the Bayesian inference analysis. The best-fitting model inferred from the alignment of 12S and 16S rDNA gene fragments (423 bp and 467 bp respectively, both fragments concatenated 887 bp, Genbank accessions: KF589953-45) for the BI tree was TIM2+I+G (−lnL=−3812.3087, BIC=7868.9798). In the phylogram, a poorly-resolved monophyletic clade (BPP: 0.62) was recovered, in which P. bocourti and Lioscincus nigrofasciolatus are sister clades. There was better support for Lioscincus tillieri being a sister group to the clade containing P. bocourti and L. nigrofasciolatus (BPP: 0.87). Our results confirm those of Ineich et al. (2013); some genera are paraphylectic (e.g. Oligosoma and Lioscincus), suggesting the need for taxonomic reassessment.