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Resolution of the Early Placental Mammal Radiation Using Bayesian Phylogenetics
William J. Murphy,1*Eduardo Eizirik,12*Stephen J. O'Brien,1Ole Madsen,3Mark Scally,45Christophe J. Douady,45Emma Teeling,45Oliver A. Ryder,6Michael J. Stanhope,57Wilfried W. de Jong,38Mark S. Springer4
Molecular phylogenetic studies have resolved placental
mammals into four major groups, but have not established the full
hierarchyof interordinal relationships, including the position of the
root.The latter is critical for understanding the early biogeographichistory of placentals. We investigated placental phylogeny usingBayesian and maximum-likelihood methods and a 16.4-kilobase moleculardata set. Interordinal relationships are almost entirely resolved.The
basal split is between Afrotheria and other placentals, atabout 103 million years, and may be accounted for by the separationof South
America and Africa in the Cretaceous. Crown-group Eutheriamay have
their most recent common ancestry in the Southern Hemisphere(Gondwana).
1 Laboratory of Genomic Diversity, National
Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD 21702, USA.
2 Department of Biology, University of Maryland,
College Park, MD 20742, USA.
3 Department of
Biochemistry, University of Nijmegen, Netherlands.
4 Department of Biology, University of California,
Riverside, California 92521, USA.
5 Queen's
University of Belfast, Biology and Biochemistry, Belfast, UK.
6 Center for Reproduction of Endangered Species,
Zoological Society of San Diego, San Diego, CA 92112, USA.
7 Bioinformatics, GlaxoSmithKline, Collegeville, PA
19426, USA.
8 Institute for Systematics and
Population Biology, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
*
These authors contributed equally to this work.
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
mark.springer{at}ucr.edu (M.S.S.) or obrien{at}ncifcrf.gov (S.J.O.)
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