Dataset Information

Phylogeny and biogeography of the African Bathyergidae: a review of patterns and processes.

ABSTRACT: Background:We review genealogical relationships, biogeographic patterns and broad historical drivers of speciation within the Bathyergidae, a group of endemic African rodents, as well as identify key taxa which need further research. Methods:We sourced comparable cytochrome b sequence data (comparable data available for all members for the Family) and geographic information for all six genera of the African subterranean rodent. This information was combined into the most comprehensive and geographically representative evolutionary study for the Bathyergidae to date. Results:Species richness within the Bathyergidae appears to be underestimated, with undescribed taxa in five of the six genera. Biogeographic patterns suggest large historical distributions, which were repeatedly fragmented by major landscape changes (especially rifting, uplift and drainage evolution) since the Miocene. Aside from vicariant events, other factors (ecological specialization, population-level responses and climatic change) may have been instrumental in driving divergences in the Bathyergidae. As such, adaptive differences may exist among both populations and species across their discrete ranges, driving independent evolutionary trajectories among taxa. In addition, highly fragmented distributions of divergent (and often relict) lineages indicates the possibility of narrow endemics restricted to diminishing suitable habitats. From this, it is clear that a systematic revision of the Bathyergidae is necessary; such a revision should include comprehensive sampling of all putative taxa, the addition of genomic information to assess adaptive differences, as well as ecological information.

SUBMITTER: Visser JH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6798870 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Phylogeny and biogeography of the African Bathyergidae: a review of patterns and processes.

Visser Jacobus H JH Bennett Nigel C NC Jansen van Vuuren Bettine B

PeerJ 20191015

<h4>Background</h4>We review genealogical relationships, biogeographic patterns and broad historical drivers of speciation within the Bathyergidae, a group of endemic African rodents, as well as identify key taxa which need further research.<h4>Methods</h4>We sourced comparable cytochrome <i>b</i> sequence data (comparable data available for all members for the Family) and geographic information for all six genera of the African subterranean rodent. This information was combined into the most co ...[more]

PMID: 31637115

Similar Datasets

Project description:The Bathyergidae, commonly known as blesmols or African mole-rats, is a family of rodents well-known for their subterranean lifestyle and tunnelling behaviour. Four of the five extant bathyergid genera (Cryptomys, Fukomys, Georychus and Heliophobius) are chisel-tooth diggers, that is they dig through soil with their enlarged incisors, whereas the remaining genus (Bathyergus) is a scratch-digger, only using its forelimbs for burrowing. Heterocephalus glaber, the naked mole-rat, is also a chisel-tooth digger and was until recently included within the Bathyergidae (as the most basally branching genus), but has now been placed by some researchers into its own family, the Heterocephalidae. Given the importance of the masticatory apparatus in habitat construction in this group, knowledge and understanding of the morphology and arrangement of the jaw-closing muscles in Bathyergidae is vital for future functional analyses. Here, we use diffusible iodine-based contrast-enhanced microCT to reveal and describe the muscles of mastication in representative specimens of each genus of bathyergid mole-rat and to compare them to the previously described musculature of the naked mole-rat. In all bathyergids, as in all rodents, the masseter muscle is the most dominant component of the masticatory musculature. However, the temporalis is also a relatively large muscle, a condition normally associated with sciuromorphous rodents. Unlike their hystricomorphous relatives, the bathyergids do not show an extension of the masseter through the infraorbital foramen on to the rostrum (other than a very slight protrusion in Cryptomys and Fukomys). Thus, morphologically, bathyergids are protrogomorphous, although this is thought to be secondarily derived rather than retained from ancestral rodents. Overall, the relative proportions of the jaw-closing muscles were found to be fairly consistent between genera except in Bathyergus, which was found to have an enlarged superficial masseter and relatively smaller pterygoid muscles. It is concluded that these differences may be a reflection of the behaviour of Bathyergus which, uniquely in the family, does not use its incisors for digging.

Dataset Information

Phylogeny and biogeography of the African Bathyergidae: a review of patterns and processes.

Publications

Phylogeny and biogeography of the African Bathyergidae: a review of patterns and processes.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets