Molecular and Genomic Data Identify the Closest Living Relative of Primates
Jan E. Jane
ka,1
Webb Miller,2
Thomas H. Pringle,3
Frank Wiens,4
Annette Zitzmann,5
Kristofer M. Helgen,6
Mark S. Springer,7
William J. Murphy1*
A full understanding of primate morphological and genomic evolution requires the identification of their closest living relative. In order to resolve the ancestral relationships among primates and their closest relatives, we searched multispecies genome alignments for phylogenetically informative rare genomic changes within the superordinal group Euarchonta, which includes the orders Primates, Dermoptera (colugos), and Scandentia (treeshrews). We also constructed phylogenetic trees from 14 kilobases of nuclear genes for representatives from most major primate lineages, both extant colugos, and multiple treeshrews, including the pentail treeshrew, Ptilocercus lowii, the only living member of the family Ptilocercidae. A relaxed molecular clock analysis including Ptilocercus suggests that treeshrews arose approximately 63 million years ago. Our data show that colugos are the closest living relatives of primates and indicate that their divergence occurred in the Cretaceous.
1 Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
2 Center for Comparative Genomics and Bioinformatics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
3 Sperling Foundation, Eugene, OR 97405, USA.
4 Department of Animal Physiology, University of Bayreuth, D-95440 Bayreuth, Germany.
5 Zoological Institute, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, D-60054 Frankfurt/Main, Germany.
6 National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013, USA.
7 Department of Biology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed at the Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Veterinary Medical Administration Building, Room 107, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843–4458, USA. E-mail: wmurphy{at}cvm.tamu.edu
