Python phylogenetics: inference from morphology and mitochondrial DNA
Lesley H. Rawlings,Lesley H. Rawlings,Daniel L. Rabosky,Stephen C. Donnellan,Mark N. Hutchinson +4 more
TLDR
The data support an origin for pythons outside Australia, followed by a radiation into Australia during the mid-Tertiary, and strong support for elevated speciation rates during the period when Australia collided with the proto-Indonesian archipelago.Abstract:
We used nucleotide sequences from four mitochondrial genes and structural features of the mitochondrial control region, combined with a revised, previously published, morphological data set to infer phylogenetic relationships among the pythons. We aimed to determine which of two competing hypotheses of relationships of the genera Aspidites and Python best explains the evolutionary and bioegeographical history of the family. All analyses of the combined data recover a set of relationships in which (1) the genus Python is paraphyletic with the two east Asian species, P. reticulatus and P. timoriensis, as the sister lineage to the seven Australo-Papuan python genera. We support recognition of a distinct genus for the P. reticulatus + P. timoriensis clade; (2) the remaining species of the genus Python form a clade which is the sister lineage to the remainder of the family; (3) the genus Aspidites is embedded among the Australo-Papuan genera. The seemingly primitive characteristics of Aspidites may be better interpreted as reversals or specializations that have accompanied a switch to burrowing in this genus. Resolution of the relationships among the Australo-Papuan lineages is weak, possibly because of rapid diversification early in the history of the radiation. We assessed the tempo of the Indo-Australian python radiation using a maximum likelihood framework based on the birth‐death process. We find strong support for elevated speciation rates during the period when Australia collided with the proto-Indonesian archipelago. The data support an origin for pythons outside Australia, followed by a radiation into Australia during the mid-Tertiary. © 2008 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2008, 93, 603‐619.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
TL;DR: It is shown that the full set of hydromagnetic equations admit five more integrals, besides the energy integral, if dissipative processes are absent, which made it possible to formulate a variational principle for the force-free magnetic fields.
Journal ArticleDOI
A phylogeny and revised classification of Squamata, including 4161 species of lizards and snakes
TL;DR: A new large-scale phylogeny of squamate reptiles is presented that includes new, resurrected, and modified subfamilies within gymnophthalmid and scincid lizards, and boid, colubrid, and lamprophiid snakes.
Journal ArticleDOI
Density-dependent diversification in North American wood warblers
TL;DR: This work develops a new conceptual framework that distinguishes density dependence from alternative processes that also produce temporally declining diversification, and demonstrates this approach using a new phylogeny of North American Dendroica wood warblers and suggests that the tempo of wood warbler diversification was mediated by ecological interactions among species.
Journal ArticleDOI
Explosive evolutionary radiations: Decreasing speciation or increasing extinction through time?
TL;DR: A method for estimating speciation and extinction rates that vary continuously through time is developed and shows that decreasing speciation is often distinguishable from increasing extinction in the numerous molecular phylogenies of radiations that retain a preponderance of early lineages.
Journal ArticleDOI
Decline of a biome: Evolution, contraction, fragmentation, extinction and invasion of the Australian mesic zone biota
Margaret Byrne,Dorothy A. Steane,Leo Joseph,David K. Yeates,Gregory J. Jordan,Darren M. Crayn,Ken Aplin,David J. Cantrill,Lynette Gai Cook,Michael D. Crisp,J. Scott Keogh,Jane Melville,Craig Moritz,Nicholas Porch,J. M. Kale Sniderman,Paul Sunnucks,Peter H. Weston +16 more
TL;DR: The aims are to review and refine key hypotheses derived from palaeoclimatic data and the fossil record that are critical to understanding the evolution of the Australian mesic biota and examine predictions arising from these hypotheses using available molecular phylogenetic and phylogeographical data.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Clustal w: improving the sensitivity of progressive multiple sequence alignment through sequence weighting, position-specific gap penalties and weight matrix choice
TL;DR: The sensitivity of the commonly used progressive multiple sequence alignment method has been greatly improved and modifications are incorporated into a new program, CLUSTAL W, which is freely available.
Journal ArticleDOI
MrBayes 3: Bayesian phylogenetic inference under mixed models
TL;DR: MrBayes 3 performs Bayesian phylogenetic analysis combining information from different data partitions or subsets evolving under different stochastic evolutionary models to analyze heterogeneous data sets and explore a wide variety of structured models mixing partition-unique and shared parameters.
Journal ArticleDOI
MODELTEST: testing the model of DNA substitution.
David Posada,Keith A. Crandall +1 more
TL;DR: The program MODELTEST uses log likelihood scores to establish the model of DNA evolution that best fits the data.
Journal ArticleDOI
A simple salting out procedure for extracting DNA from human nucleated cells
TL;DR: A rapid, safe and inexpensive method was developed to simplify the deprotein-ization procedure that yielded quantities comparable to those obtained from phenol-chloroform extractions, rendering the entire process of RFLP analysis free of toxic materials.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference
TL;DR: Wilson and Reeder's Mammal Species of the World as discussed by the authors is the classic reference book on the taxonomic classification and distribution of more than 5400 species of mammals that exist today.
Related Papers (5)
A phylogeny and revised classification of Squamata, including 4161 species of lizards and snakes
The molecular evolutionary tree of lizards, snakes, and amphisbaenians.
Nicolas Vidal,S. Blair Hedges +1 more
The phylogeny of squamate reptiles (lizards, snakes, and amphisbaenians) inferred from nine nuclear protein-coding genes.
Nicolas Vidal,S. Blair Hedges +1 more