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MBE Advance Access published online on October 24, 2006
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msl158
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Accepted October 11, 2006

Research Article

Mitochondrial Genomes and Avian Phylogeny: Complex Characters and Resolvability Without Explosive Radiations

Gillian C. Gibb 1 *, Olga Kardailsky 1, Rebecca Kimball 2, Edward Braun 2, and David Penny 1

1 Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
2 Department of Zoology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Gillian C. Gibb, E-mail: g.c.gibb{at}massey.ac.nz


  Abstract

We improve the taxon sampling for avian phylogeny by analyzing seven new mitochondrial genomes (a toucan, woodpecker, osprey, forest falcon, American kestrel, heron and a pelican). This improves inference of the avian tree, and it supports three major conclusions. The first is that some birds (including a parrot, a toucan and the osprey) exhibit a complete duplication of the control region meaning that there are at least four distinct gene orders within birds. However it appears that there are regions of continued gene conversion between the duplicate control regions, resulting in duplications that can be stable for long evolutionary periods. Because of this stable duplicated state, gene order can eventually either revert to the original order, or change to the new gene order. The existence of this stable duplicate state explains how an apparently unlikely event (finding the same novel gene order) can arise multiple times. Although rare genomic changes have theoretical advantages for tree-reconstruction, they can be compromised if these apparently rare events have a stable intermediate state. Secondly, the toucan and woodpecker improve the resolution of the six-way split within Neoaves that has been called an "explosive radiation". An explosive radiation implies that normal microevolutionary events are insufficient to explain the observed macroevolution. By showing the avian tree is, in principle, resolvable we demonstrate that the radiation of birds is amenable to standard evolutionary analysis. Thirdly, and as expected from theory, additional taxa breaking up long branches stabilize the position of some problematic taxa (like the falcon). In addition, we report that within the birds of prey and allies we did not find evidence pairing New World vultures with storks, or Accipitrids (hawks, eagles and osprey) with Falconids.

Keywords: gene order; forest falcon; osprey; kestrel; woodpecker; heron; toucan; pelican; explosive radiation.
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This article has been cited by other articles:


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[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


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