The area of the south‐western Balkans hosts a remarkably high species richness and has been considered a biodiversity hotspot. The significance of the Balkan Peninsula as a biodiversity refugium during the Quaternary climatic fluctuations has been repeatedly pointed out in literature, yet the area remains quite understudied in terms of phylogeography. Contributing to the biogeography and phylogeography of the Balkan area, we herein present the phylogeographic relationships within the lizards of the genus Algyroides, focusing on the two species that occur in the Balkans (namely, A. nigropunctatus and A. moreoticus), including representatives of Dinarolacerta and Lacerta lizards as outgroups. We combined phylogenetic, phylogeographic and species distribution modelling analyses, using both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA data, in order to uncover the phylogeographic history of the genus and evaluate the validity of the extant taxonomy. Our results reveal three major clades within Algyroides in southern Balkans; one corresponds to A. moreoticus, having sister group relationships with the genus Dinarolacerta, and the other two to A. nigropunctatus, each corresponding to one of the morphological subspecies, which seem to be monophyletic, allopatric and reproductively isolated. These results expose an unprecedented phylogeographic pattern in the area of western Greece where the two major clades of A. nigropunctatus meet, and can contribute to a taxonomic re‐evaluation of the species. Moreover, questions are raised on the validity of Dinarolacerta as a genus due to it clustering within the genus Algyroides.

中文翻译：

---

巴尔干半岛Algyroides（索里亚（Sauria：Lacertidae））的系统记录

巴尔干西南部地区的物种丰富度很高，被认为是生物多样性的热点。文献中多次指出巴尔干半岛在第四纪气候波动期间作为生物多样性保护区的重要性，但从系统地理学的角度来看，该地区仍然未被充分研究。有助于巴尔干区域的生物地理学和系统地理学，我们这里给出的属的蜥蜴内的系统地理关系Algyroides，着眼于两个物种中发生的巴尔干（即，A. nigropunctatus和A. moreoticus），包括代表Dinarolacerta和Lacerta蜥蜴作为外群。我们结合线粒体和核DNA数据，进行了系统发育，系统地理学和物种分布建模分析，以揭示该属的系统地理学历史并评估现有分类法的有效性。我们的结果揭示了巴尔干南部的Algyroides内的三个主要进化枝。一个对应于A. moreoticus，与Dinarolacerta属有姐妹群关系，另外两个对应于A. nigropunctatus，每个对应于一种形态学亚种，似乎是单系的，同种异体的和生殖分离的。这些结果揭示了希腊西部地区两个主要进化枝的史无前例的植物学格局。黑刺线虫（A. nigropunctatus）会合，并有助于对该物种进行分类学重新评估。此外，由于丁香树属聚类在藻类属（Algyroides）中，因此对丁那罗属属的有效性提出了疑问。