1. Large-scale molecular phylogeny, morphology, divergence-time estimation, and the fossil record of advanced caenophidian snakes (Squamata: Serpentes)
- Author
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Ana Bottallo Quadros, Juan Camilo Arredondo, Ya-Ping Zhang, Nikolai L. Orlov, Kristin Mahlow, Robert W. Murphy, Hussam Zaher, Mark Wilkinson, Felipe G. Grazziotin, Roberta Graboski, Giovanna Gondim Montingelli, Paulo Roberto Machado-Filho, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Centre de Recherche en Paléontologie - Paris (CR2P), Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), SRI International [Menlo Park] (SRI), State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources, Kunming Institute of Zoology, and Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS)
- Subjects
0106 biological sciences ,Squamata ,Vertebrae ,[SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio] ,01 natural sciences ,Medicine and Health Sciences ,Clade ,Musculoskeletal System ,Data Management ,0303 health sciences ,Multidisciplinary ,Phylogenetic analysis ,biology ,Phylogenetic tree ,Fossils ,[SDV.BA]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Animal biology ,Eukaryota ,Paleogenetics ,Geology ,Snakes ,Fossil record ,Squamates ,Phylogenetics ,Vertebrates ,Molecular phylogenetics ,Medicine ,Anatomy ,Research Article ,Computer and Information Sciences ,Science ,Miocene epoch ,010603 evolutionary biology ,03 medical and health sciences ,Acrochordidae ,Animals ,Evolutionary Systematics ,Taxonomy ,030304 developmental biology ,Evolutionary Biology ,Organisms ,Biology and Life Sciences ,Reptiles ,Paleontology ,Geologic Time ,15. Life on land ,biology.organism_classification ,Spine ,[SDV.BA.ZI]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Animal biology/Invertebrate Zoology ,Neogene Period ,Evolutionary biology ,Amniotes ,Earth Sciences ,Cenozoic Era ,Colubroidea - Abstract
International audience; Caenophidian snakes include the file snake genus Acrochordus and advanced colubroidean snakes that radiated mainly during the Neogene. Although caenophidian snakes are a well-supported clade, their inferred affinities, based either on molecular or morphological data, remain poorly known or controversial. Here, we provide an expanded molecular phylogenetic analysis of Caenophidia and use three non-parametric measures of support–Shimodaira-Hasegawa-Like test (SHL), Felsentein (FBP) and transfer (TBE) bootstrap measures–to evaluate the robustness of each clade in the molecular tree. That very different alternative support values are common suggests that results based on only one support value should be viewed with caution. Using a scheme to combine support values, we find 20.9% of the 1265 clades comprising the inferred caenophidian tree are unambiguously supported by both SHL and FBP values, while almost 37% are unsupported or ambiguously supported, revealing the substantial extent of phylogenetic problems within Caenophidia. Combined FBP/TBE support values show similar results, while SHL/TBE result in slightly higher combined values. We consider key morphological attributes of colubroidean cranial, vertebral and hemipenial anatomy and provide additional morphological evidence supporting the clades Colubroides, Colubriformes, and Endoglyptodonta. We review and revise the relevant caenophidian fossil record and provide a time-calibrated tree derived from our molecular data to discuss the main cladogenetic events that resulted in present-day patterns of caenophidian diversification. Our results suggest that all extant families of Colubroidea and Elapoidea composing the present-day endoglyptodont fauna originated rapidly within the early Oligocene–between approximately 33 and 28 Mya–following the major terrestrial faunal turnover known as the “Grande Coupure” and associated with the overall climate shift at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary. Our results further suggest that the caenophidian radiation originated within the Caenozoic, with the divergence between Colubroides and Acrochordidae occurring in the early Eocene, at ~ 56 Mya.
- Published
- 2019