Whole-Genome Analyses Resolve the Phylogeny of Flightless Birds (Palaeognathae) in the Presence of an Empirical Anomaly Zone.

ABSTRACT: Palaeognathae represent one of the two basal lineages in modern birds, and comprise the volant (flighted) tinamous and the flightless ratites. Resolving palaeognath phylogenetic relationships has historically proved difficult, and short internal branches separating major palaeognath lineages in previous molecular phylogenies suggest that extensive incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) might have accompanied a rapid ancient divergence. Here, we investigate palaeognath relationships using genome-wide data sets of three types of noncoding nuclear markers, together totaling 20,850 loci and over 41 million base pairs of aligned sequence data. We recover a fully resolved topology placing rheas as the sister to kiwi and emu + cassowary that is congruent across marker types for two species tree methods

SUBMITTER: Cloutier A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6857515 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature