The Late Miocene Radiation of Modern Felidae: A Genetic Assessment
Warren E. Johnson,1*
Eduardo Eizirik,1,2
Jill Pecon-Slattery,1
William J. Murphy,1
Agostinho Antunes,1,3
Emma Teeling,1
Stephen J. O'Brien1*
Modern felid species descend from relatively recent (<11 million years ago) divergence and speciation events that produced successful predatory carnivores worldwide but that have confounded taxonomic classifications. A highly resolved molecular phylogeny with divergence dates for all living cat species, derived from autosomal, X-linked, Y-linked, and mitochondrial gene segments (22,789 base pairs) and 16 fossil calibrations define eight principal lineages produced through at least 10 intercontinental migrations facilitated by sea-level fluctuations. A ghost lineage analysis indicates that available felid fossils underestimate (i.e., unrepresented basal branch length) first occurrence by an average of 76%, revealing a low representation of felid lineages in paleontological remains. The phylogenetic performance of distinct gene classes showed that Y-chromosome segments are appreciably more informative than mitochondrial DNA, X-linked, or autosomal genes in resolving the rapid Felidae species radiation.
1 Laboratory of Genomic Diversity, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD 21702–1201, USA.
2 Centro de Biologia Genômica e Molecular, Faculdade de Biociências, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Avenida Ipiranga 6681, Porto Alegre, RS 90619-900, Brazil.
3 REQUIMTE, Departamento de Química, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre, 687, 4169-007 Porto, Portugal.
Present address: Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843–4458, USA.
Present address: Department of Zoology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: johnsonw{at}ncifcrf.gov (W.E.J.); obrien{at}ncifcrf.gov (S.J.O.)
