Abstract
The evolution of Neotropical Primates (NP) is permeated by factors associated with the pattern of diversification and the biogeography of the major lineages. These questions can be better understood by providing a robust estimate of the chronological scenario of NP evolution, a reason why molecular dating methods have been widely applied. One aspect of especial interest is the timing of diversification of the major NP lineages (pitheciids, atelids and cebids), which may have resulted from rapid episodes of adaptive radiation, a question that requires NP divergence time estimates with accurate statistical certainty. In this study, we evaluated the primate timescale focused on the age of nodes of NP radiation. We investigated the performance of complete primate mitochondrial genomes as traditional molecular markers of primate evolution and further including original mitochondrial data from the endangered muriqui, Brachyteles arachnoides (Accession No. JX262672). Comparisons of the age estimates at NP nodes based on mitochondrial genomes with those obtained from a nuclear supermatrix showed similar degrees of uncertainty. Further molecular data and more informative calibration priors are required for a more precise understanding of the early NP diversification.
Highlights
The diversification of Neotropical Primates (NP; Primates, Anthropoidea, Platyrrhini) has recently been a subject of detailed analyses [1,2,3,4] several aspects of the evolutionary history of this group still remains poorly understood
Our findings indicated that divergence time estimates inferred from mitochondrial genomes were similar to estimates with nuclear gene supermatrices, and that the amount of effective informative data of mitochondrial genomes was equivalent to the one provided by nuclear supermatrices
The Brachyteles arachnoides mitochondrial genome was 16,491 bp long (GenBank JX262672); gene order being the same as in mammals (Table 2) and with base frequencies corresponding to values recorded for platyrrhines: fA = 31.4%, fC = 27.5%, fG = 12.5% and fT = 28.6%
Summary
The diversification of Neotropical Primates (NP; Primates, Anthropoidea, Platyrrhini) has recently been a subject of detailed analyses [1,2,3,4] several aspects of the evolutionary history of this group still remains poorly understood. The conspicuous spatial distribution of some NP lineages has triggered the investigation of the underlying ecological and geological factors operating during their biogeographic history This is noticeable in lineages comprising Amazonian and non-Amazonian representatives, like the (Mico, Cebuella)/Callithrix sister genera [7], the gracile and robust Cebus groups [8], and Callicebus species [9]. Our findings indicated that divergence time estimates inferred from mitochondrial genomes were similar to estimates with nuclear gene supermatrices, and that the amount of effective informative data of mitochondrial genomes was equivalent to the one provided by nuclear supermatrices
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