Toward the resolution of an explosive radiation—A multilocus phylogeny of oceanic dolphins (Delphinidae)

Abstract

Oceanic dolphins (Delphinidae) are the product of a rapid radiation that yielded ∼36 extant species of small to medium-sized cetaceans that first emerged in the Late Miocene. Although they are a charismatic group of organisms that have become poster children for marine conservation, many phylogenetic relationships within Delphinidae remain elusive due to the slow molecular evolution of the group and the difficulty of resolving short branches from successive cladogenic events. Here I combine existing and newly generated sequences from four mitochondrial (mt) genes and 20 nuclear (nu) genes to reconstruct a well-supported phylogenetic hypothesis for Delphinidae. This study compares maximum-likelihood and Bayesian inference methods of several data sets including mtDNA, combined nuDNA, gene trees of individual nuDNA loci, and concatenated mtDNA+nuDNA. In addition, I contrast these standard phylogenetic analyses with the species tree reconstruction method of Bayesian concordance analysis (BCA). Despite finding discordance between mtDNA and individual nuDNA loci, the concatenated matrix recovers a completely resolved and robustly supported phylogeny that is also broadly congruent with BCA trees. This study strongly supports groupings such as Delphininae, Lissodelphininae, Globicephalinae, Sotalia+Delphininae, Steno+Orcaella+Globicephalinae, and Leucopleurus acutus, Lagenorhynchus albirostris, and Orcinus orca as basal delphinid taxa.