True toads of the large family Bufonidae are a rich resource for studying pattern and process in species diversification, but the potential cannot be realized without an understanding of the phylogenetic relationships among the family's members. There is no robust phylogenetic hypothesis available for Bufonidae. While the large size of the family prohibits the estimation of a phylogeny resolved to the species level, this level of detail is not required to answer many questions. Instead what is needed is an understanding of the phylogenetic relationships among the major subclades of the family and within small clades of recently diverged species. This study represents a hierarchical approach to the elucidation of phylogenetic relationships within Bufonidae and the application of this information to an understanding of species diversification. DNA sequence data from representative species at two levels of divergence within the family: among distantly related species and within one species group, will be used to estimate phylogenetic relationships at these levels. With a phylogenetic hypothesis for the distantly related taxa, two questions will be addressed: 1) biogeographic relationships among continents and 2) morphological innovation. With a hypothesis of phylogenetic relationships within one species group, patterns and processes of speciation will be studied.
