Phylogenetic affinity of tree shrews to Glires is attributed to fast evolution rate

• Published in: Molecular phylogenetics and evolution Vol. 71; pp. 193 - 200
• Main Authors: Lin, Jiannan, Chen, Guangfeng, Gu, Liang, Shen, Yuefeng, Zheng, Meizhu, Zheng, Weisheng, Hu, Xinjie, Zhang, Xiaobai, Qiu, Yu, Liu, Xiaoqing, Jiang, Cizhong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.02.2014
• Subjects: Animals; Base Composition; Codon; Evolution rate; Genome; Humans; Mammalian phylogeny; Mammals - genetics; Phylogenomics; Phylogeny; Primates; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Tree shrew; Tupaia; Tupaiidae - genetics; Evolution rate; Tree shrew; Mammalian phylogeny; Phylogenomics
• ISSN: 1055-7903; 1095-9513
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ympev.2013.12.001

[Display omitted] •Slowly and fast evolving sites lead to the incongruent phylogenetic positions of tree shrews.•The monophyletic relationship between tree shrews and Glires is attributed to their fast substitution rates.•Sequence GC content is not informative to resolve the incongruent phylogenetic positions of tree shrews.•The closer phylogenetic affinity of tree shrews to Primates than to Glires is supported by confidence of tree selection. Previous phylogenetic analyses have led to incongruent evolutionary relationships between tree shrews and other suborders of Euarchontoglires. What caused the incongruence remains elusive. In this study, we identified 6845 orthologous genes between seventeen placental mammals. Tree shrews and Primates were monophyletic in the phylogenetic trees derived from the first or/and second codon positions whereas tree shrews and Glires formed a monophyly in the trees derived from the third or all codon positions. The same topology was obtained in the phylogeny inference using the slowly and fast evolving genes, respectively. This incongruence was likely attributed to the fast substitution rate in tree shrews and Glires. Notably, sequence GC content only was not informative to resolve the controversial phylogenetic relationships between tree shrews, Glires, and Primates. Finally, estimation in the confidence of the tree selection strongly supported the phylogenetic affiliation of tree shrews to Primates as a monophyly.