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Phylogenetic relationships and divergence times of Charadriiformes genera: multigene evidence for the Cretaceous origin of at least 14 clades of shorebirds.

ABSTRACT: Comparative study of character evolution in the shorebirds is presently limited because the phylogenetic placement of some enigmatic genera remains unclear. We therefore used Bayesian methods to obtain a well-supported phylogeny of 90 recognized genera using 5 kb of mitochondrial and nuclear sequences. The tree comprised three major clades: Lari (gulls, auks and allies plus buttonquails) as sister to Scolopaci (sandpipers, jacanas and allies), and in turn sister to Charadrii (plovers, oystercatchers and allies), as in previous molecular studies. Plovers and noddies were not recovered as monophyletic assemblages, and the Egyptian plover Pluvianus is apparently not a plover. Molecular dating using multiple fossil constraints suggests that the three suborders originated in the late Cretaceous between 79 and 102 Mya, and at least 14 lineages of modern shorebirds survived the mass extinction at the K/T boundary. Previous difficulties in determining the phylogenetic relationships of enigmatic taxa reflect the fact that they are well-differentiated relicts of old, genus-poor lineages. We refrain from suggesting systematic revisions for shorebirds at this time because gene trees may fail to recover the species tree when long branches are connected to deep, shorter branches, as is the case for some of the enigmatic taxa.

SUBMITTER: Baker AJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2375939 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BACKGROUND: The genus Rattus is highly speciose and has a complex taxonomy that is not fully resolved. As shown previously there are two major groups within the genus, an Asian and an Australo-Papuan group. This study focuses on the Australo-Papuan group and particularly on the Australian rats. There are uncertainties regarding the number of species within the group and the relationships among them. We analysed 16 mitochondrial genomes, including seven novel genomes from six species, to help elucidate the evolutionary history of the Australian rats. We also demonstrate, from a larger dataset, the usefulness of short regions of the mitochondrial genome in identifying these rats at the species level. RESULTS: Analyses of 16 mitochondrial genomes representing species sampled from Australo-Papuan and Asian clades of Rattus indicate divergence of these two groups ~2.7 million years ago (Mya). Subsequent diversification of at least 4 lineages within the Australo-Papuan clade was rapid and occurred over the period from ~ 0.9-1.7 Mya, a finding that explains the difficulty in resolving some relationships within this clade. Phylogenetic analyses of our 126 taxon, but shorter sequence (1952 nucleotides long), Rattus database generally give well supported species clades. CONCLUSIONS: Our whole mitochondrial genome analyses are concordant with a taxonomic division that places the native Australian rats into the Rattus fuscipes species group. We suggest the following order of divergence of the Australian species. R. fuscipes is the oldest lineage among the Australian rats and is not part of a New Guinean radiation. R. lutreolus is also within this Australian clade and shallower than R. tunneyi while the R. sordidus group is the shallowest lineage in the clade. The divergences within the R. sordidus and R. leucopus lineages occurring about half a million years ago support the hypotheses of more recent interchanges of rats between Australia and New Guinea. While problematic for inference of deeper divergences, we report that the analysis of shorter mitochondrial sequences is very useful for species identification in rats.

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Phylogenetic relationships and divergence times of Charadriiformes genera: multigene evidence for the Cretaceous origin of at least 14 clades of shorebirds.

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