Title

Pattern and Timing of Diversification of the Mammalian Order Carnivora Inferred from Multiple Nuclear Gene Sequences

Authors

Eduardo Eizirik, National Cancer Institute at Frederick; PUCRS - Brazil; Instituto Pro-Carnovoros - Brazil
William J. Murphy, Texas A&M University - College Station
Klaus-Peter Koepfli, University of California - Los Angeles
Warren E. Johnson, National Cancer Institute at Frederick
J. W. Dragoo, University of New Mexico - Albuquerque
Robert K. Wayne, University of California - Los Angeles
Stephen J. O'Brien, National Cancer Institute at FrederickFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-2010

Publication Title

Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution

Keywords

Carnivores, Mammals, Nuclear markers, Supermatrix, Molecular dating, Divtime, BEAST

ISSN

1055-7903

Volume

56

Issue/No.

1

First Page

49

Last Page

63

Abstract

The mammalian order Carnivora has attracted the attention of scientists of various disciplines for decades, leading to intense interest in defining its supra-familial relationships. In the last few years, major changes to the topological structure of the carnivoran tree have been proposed and supported by various molecular data sets, radically changing the traditional view of family composition in this order. Although a sequence of molecular studies have established a growing consensus with respect to most inter-familial relationships, no analysis so far has included all carnivoran lineages (both feliform and caniform) in an integrated data set, so as to determine comparative patterns of diversification. Moreover, no study conducted thus far has estimated divergence dates among all carnivoran families, which is an important requirement in the attempt to understand the patterns and tempo of diversification in this group. In this study, we have investigated the phylogenetic relationships among carnivoran families, and performed molecular dating analyses of the inferred nodes. We assembled a molecular supermatrix containing 14 genes (7765 bp), most of which have not been previously used in supra-familial carnivoran phylogenetics, for 50 different genera representing all carnivoran families. Analysis of this data set led to consistent and robust resolution of all supra-familial nodes in the carnivoran tree, and allowed the construction of a molecular timescale for the evolution of this mammalian order.

Comments

©2010 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Additional Comments

GenBank accession #s: GU930839-GU931312

NSUWorks Citation

Eizirik, Eduardo; William J. Murphy; Klaus-Peter Koepfli; Warren E. Johnson; J. W. Dragoo; Robert K. Wayne; and Stephen J. O'Brien. 2010. "Pattern and Timing of Diversification of the Mammalian Order Carnivora Inferred from Multiple Nuclear Gene Sequences." Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 56, (1): 49-63. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cnso_bio_facarticles/457

ORCID ID

0000-0001-7353-8301

ResearcherID

N-1726-2015