Rethinking the Origin of Primates by Reconstructing Their Diel Activity Patterns Using Genetics and Morphology.

ABSTRACT: Phylogenetic inference typically invokes nocturnality as ancestral in primates; however, some recent studies posit that diurnality is. Here, through adaptive evolutionary analyses of phototransduction genes by using a variety of approaches (restricted branch/branch-site models and unrestricted branch-site-based models (BS-REL, BUSTED and RELAX)), our results consistently showed that ancestral primates were subjected to enhanced positive selection for bright-light vision and relatively weak selection for dim-light vision. These results suggest that ancestral primates were mainly diurnal with some crepuscularity and support diurnality as plesiomorphic from Euarchontoglires. Our analyses show relaxed selection on motion detection in ancestral primates, suggesting that ancestral primates decre

SUBMITTER: Wu Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5605515 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature