9407605 Maxson The relationships among the Holarctic hylid treefrogs (Anura:Hylidae) remain only partially resolved, in spite of extensive behavioral, morphological, developmental, and molecular work. Immunological estimates of amino acid sequence divergence in the protein serum albumin have provided information on relationships within many lineages of hylid frogs, including Holarctic hylids. The PIs have cloned and sequenced part of the coding portion of the serum albumin gene from several frog species. They propose to clone albumins and sequence the serum albumin gene transcript from at least 30 species of Holarctic hylid frogs. Based on preliminary results, and published albumin sequences from other vertebrate taxa, it is clear that albumin sequence data can provide valuable information on the relationships among and within Holartic hylid frog species groups. The PIs will clone and sequence serum albumin cDNAs from representatives of the remaining subfamilies within Hylidae and other select frog families as a pilot survey to ascertain the genealogical levels at which nucleotide and amino acid sequence data from this nuclear gene will be most informative. In addition to providing information on phylogenetic relationships among the Holarctic hylids, translation of the DNA sequence data from the coding portion of the serum albumin gene will allow tests of the accuracy of estimates of protein sequence divergence collected by the quantitative immunological technique of microcomplement fixation (MC'F). Such immunological data have been used to explore relationships within the Holarctic hylids and also within all major tetrapod lineages, as well as to investigate historical processes such as speciation. This study will permit evaluation of both Holarctic frog relationships and the accuracy of MC'F estimates of sequence divergence and, consequently, assessment of the reliability of the many studies in which MC'F has been employed.
