A web-database of mammalian morphology and a reanalysis of placental phylogeny
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recent publications concerning the interordinal phylogeny of placental mammals have converged on a common signal, consisting of four major radiations with some ambiguity regarding the placental root. The DNA data with which these rel...
Main Author: | |
---|---|
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
BMC
2007-07-01
|
Series: | BMC Evolutionary Biology |
Online Access: | http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/7/108 |
id |
doaj-1be329dd3e9e46278cea78c32e614a78 |
---|---|
record_format |
Article |
spelling |
doaj-1be329dd3e9e46278cea78c32e614a782021-09-02T15:11:36ZengBMCBMC Evolutionary Biology1471-21482007-07-017110810.1186/1471-2148-7-108A web-database of mammalian morphology and a reanalysis of placental phylogenyAsher Robert J<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recent publications concerning the interordinal phylogeny of placental mammals have converged on a common signal, consisting of four major radiations with some ambiguity regarding the placental root. The DNA data with which these relationships have been reconstructed are easily accessible from public databases; access to morphological characters is much more difficult. Here, I present a graphical web-database of morphological characters focusing on placental mammals, in tandem with a combined-data phylogenetic analysis of placental mammal phylogeny.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The results reinforce the growing consensus regarding the extant placental mammal clades of Afrotheria, Xenarthra, Euarchontoglires, and Laurasiatheria. Unweighted parsimony applied to all DNA sequences and insertion-deletion (indel) characters of extant taxa alone support a placental root at murid rodents; combined with morphology this shifts to Afrotheria. Bayesian analyses of morphology, indels, and DNA support both a basal position for Afrotheria and the position of Cretaceous eutherians outside of crown Placentalia. Depending on treatment of third codon positions, the affinity of several fossils (<it>Leptictis</it>,<it>Paleoparadoxia</it>, <it>Plesiorycteropus </it>and <it>Zalambdalestes</it>) vary, highlighting the potential effect of sequence data on fossils for which such data are missing.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The combined dataset supports the location of the placental mammal root at Afrotheria or Xenarthra, not at <it>Erinaceus </it>or rodents. Even a small morphological dataset can have a marked influence on the location of the root in a combined-data analysis. Additional morphological data are desirable to better reconstruct the position of several fossil taxa; and the graphic-rich, web-based morphology data matrix presented here will make it easier to incorporate more taxa into a larger data matrix.</p> http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/7/108 |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Asher Robert J |
spellingShingle |
Asher Robert J A web-database of mammalian morphology and a reanalysis of placental phylogeny BMC Evolutionary Biology |
author_facet |
Asher Robert J |
author_sort |
Asher Robert J |
title |
A web-database of mammalian morphology and a reanalysis of placental phylogeny |
title_short |
A web-database of mammalian morphology and a reanalysis of placental phylogeny |
title_full |
A web-database of mammalian morphology and a reanalysis of placental phylogeny |
title_fullStr |
A web-database of mammalian morphology and a reanalysis of placental phylogeny |
title_full_unstemmed |
A web-database of mammalian morphology and a reanalysis of placental phylogeny |
title_sort |
web-database of mammalian morphology and a reanalysis of placental phylogeny |
publisher |
BMC |
series |
BMC Evolutionary Biology |
issn |
1471-2148 |
publishDate |
2007-07-01 |
description |
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recent publications concerning the interordinal phylogeny of placental mammals have converged on a common signal, consisting of four major radiations with some ambiguity regarding the placental root. The DNA data with which these relationships have been reconstructed are easily accessible from public databases; access to morphological characters is much more difficult. Here, I present a graphical web-database of morphological characters focusing on placental mammals, in tandem with a combined-data phylogenetic analysis of placental mammal phylogeny.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The results reinforce the growing consensus regarding the extant placental mammal clades of Afrotheria, Xenarthra, Euarchontoglires, and Laurasiatheria. Unweighted parsimony applied to all DNA sequences and insertion-deletion (indel) characters of extant taxa alone support a placental root at murid rodents; combined with morphology this shifts to Afrotheria. Bayesian analyses of morphology, indels, and DNA support both a basal position for Afrotheria and the position of Cretaceous eutherians outside of crown Placentalia. Depending on treatment of third codon positions, the affinity of several fossils (<it>Leptictis</it>,<it>Paleoparadoxia</it>, <it>Plesiorycteropus </it>and <it>Zalambdalestes</it>) vary, highlighting the potential effect of sequence data on fossils for which such data are missing.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The combined dataset supports the location of the placental mammal root at Afrotheria or Xenarthra, not at <it>Erinaceus </it>or rodents. Even a small morphological dataset can have a marked influence on the location of the root in a combined-data analysis. Additional morphological data are desirable to better reconstruct the position of several fossil taxa; and the graphic-rich, web-based morphology data matrix presented here will make it easier to incorporate more taxa into a larger data matrix.</p> |
url |
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/7/108 |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT asherrobertj awebdatabaseofmammalianmorphologyandareanalysisofplacentalphylogeny AT asherrobertj webdatabaseofmammalianmorphologyandareanalysisofplacentalphylogeny |
_version_ |
1721173971321225216 |