iBet uBet web content aggregator. Adding the entire web to your favor.
iBet uBet web content aggregator. Adding the entire web to your favor.



Link to original content: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22993238
Resolving the phylogeny of lizards and snakes (Squamata) with extensive sampling of genes and species - PubMed Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comparative Study
. 2012 Dec 23;8(6):1043-6.
doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2012.0703. Epub 2012 Sep 19.

Resolving the phylogeny of lizards and snakes (Squamata) with extensive sampling of genes and species

John J Wiens  1 , Carl R Hutter, Daniel G Mulcahy, Brice P Noonan, Ted M Townsend, Jack W Sites Jr, Tod W Reeder
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Resolving the phylogeny of lizards and snakes (Squamata) with extensive sampling of genes and species

John J Wiens et al. Biol Lett. .

Abstract

Squamate reptiles (lizards and snakes) are one of the most diverse groups of terrestrial vertebrates. Recent molecular analyses have suggested a very different squamate phylogeny relative to morphological hypotheses, but many aspects remain uncertain from molecular data. Here, we analyse higher-level squamate phylogeny with a molecular dataset of unprecedented size, including 161 squamate species for up to 44 nuclear genes each (33 717 base pairs), using both concatenated and species-tree methods for the first time. Our results strongly resolve most squamate relationships and reveal some surprising results. In contrast to most other recent studies, we find that dibamids and gekkotans are together the sister group to all other squamates. Remarkably, we find that the distinctive scolecophidians (blind snakes) are paraphyletic with respect to other snakes, suggesting that snakes were primitively burrowers and subsequently re-invaded surface habitats. Finally, we find that some clades remain poorly supported, despite our extensive data. Our analyses show that weakly supported clades are associated with relatively short branches for which individual genes often show conflicting relationships. These latter results have important implications for all studies that attempt to resolve phylogenies with large-scale phylogenomic datasets.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Phylogeny of squamate reptiles from concatenated likelihood analysis of 44 nuclear genes (see the electronic supplementary material, figure S1 for Bayesian tree). Uncircled numbers at nodes indicate bootstrap values >50% (branches too short to depict here have clades indicated with an open circle); circled numbers correspond to clades in electronic supplementary material, appendix S5. Branch lengths are estimated by likelihood (length for root arbitrarily shortened to facilitate showing ingroup branch lengths).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Sites J. W., Jr, Reeder T. W., Wiens J. J. 2011. Phylogenetic insights on evolutionary novelties in lizards and snakes: sex, birth, bodies, niches, and venom. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 42, 227–24410.1146/annurev-ecolsys-102710-145051 (doi:10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-102710-145051) - DOI - DOI
    1. Kasturiratne A., Wickremasinghe A. R., de Silva N., Gunawardena N. K., Pathmeswaran A., Premaratna R., Savioli L., Lalloo D. G., de Silva J. 2008. Estimation of the global burden of snakebite. PLoS Med. 5, e218.10.1371/journal.pmed.0050218 (doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050218) - DOI - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Townsend T., Larson A., Louis E. J., Macey J. R. 2004. Molecular phylogenetics of Squamata: the position of snakes, amphisbaenians, and dibamids, and the root of the squamate tree. Syst. Biol. 53, 735–75710.1080/10635150490522340 (doi:10.1080/10635150490522340) - DOI - DOI - PubMed
    1. Vidal N., Hedges S. B. 2005. The phylogeny of squamate reptiles (lizards, snakes, and amphisbaenians) inferred from nine nuclear protein-coding genes. C. R. Biol. 328, 1000–100810.1016/j.crvi.2005.10.001 (doi:10.1016/j.crvi.2005.10.001) - DOI - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wiens J. J., Kuczynski C. A., Townsend T., Reeder T. W., Mulcahy D. G., Sites J. W., Jr 2010. Combining phylogenomics and fossils in higher-level squamate reptile phylogeny: molecular data change the placement of fossil taxa. Syst. Biol. 59, 674–68810.1093/sysbio/syq048 (doi:10.1093/sysbio/syq048) - DOI - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources