Re: Retroposon evidence for an explosive radiation of Neoaves

[Jeff Hecht <jeff@jeffhecht.com>]

You can find the paper online if you search for Mol Biol Evol 
doi:10.1093/molbev/msr319, but not through the DOI number, which presumably has 
not been posted at the doi.org site yet.

And if you have access to the whole paper, I would also love to see a copy. It 
sounds intriguing. 

Thanks, Jeff Hecht

On Jan 3, 2012, at 1:17 PM, Mike Keesey wrote:

> 2012/1/3 David Černý <david.cerny1@gmail.com>:
>> A recent neontological paper that may be of interest to the DML:
>> 
>> Matzke A, Churnakov G, Berkes P, Arms EM, Kelsey D, Brosius J, Kriegs
>> JO, Schmitz J 2012 Retroposon insertion patterns of neoavian birds:
>> strong evidence for an extensive incomplete lineage sorting era. Mol
>> Biol Evol doi:10.1093/molbev/msr319
>> 
>> Abstract:
>> 
>> More than one hundred fifty million years ago the avian lineage
>> separated from that of other dinosaurs and later diversified into the
>> more than 10,000 species extant today. The early neoavian bird
>> radiations most likely occurred in the late Cretaceous (more than 65
>> Ma), but left behind few if any molecular signals of their archaic
>> evolutionary past. Retroposed elements, once established in an
>> ancestral population, are highly valuable, virtually homoplasy-free
>> markers of species evolution; after applying stringent orthology
>> criteria, their phylogenetically informative presence/absence patterns
>> are free of random noise and independent of evolutionary rate or
>> nucleotide composition effects. We screened for early neoavian
>> orthologous retroposon insertions and identified six markers with
>> conflicting presence/absence patterns; whereas six additional
>> retroposons established before or after the presumed major neoavian
>> radiation show consistent phylogenetic patterns. The exceptionally
>> frequent
>> conflicting retroposon presence/absence patterns of neoavian orders
>> are strong indicators of an extensive incomplete lineage sorting era,
>> potentially induced by an early rapid successive speciation of
>> ancestral Neoaves.
> 
> So more than two major clades descend from the ancestral neoavian
> population. Fascinating!
> 
> I don't seem to have access to the paper--if anyone wants to forward
> the PDF, it would be appreciated.
> 
> [Note: the DOI reported on the page doesn't appear to be functional currently]
> -- 
> T. Michael Keesey
> http://tmkeesey.net/
>