A genomic timescale for placental mammal evolution.
| Authors | |
| Abstract | The precise pattern and timing of speciation events that gave rise to all living placental mammals remain controversial. We provide a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of genetic variation across an alignment of 241 placental mammal genome assemblies, addressing prior concerns regarding limited genomic sampling across species. We compared neutral genome-wide phylogenomic signals using concatenation and coalescent-based approaches, interrogated phylogenetic variation across chromosomes, and analyzed extensive catalogs of structural variants. Interordinal relationships exhibit relatively low rates of phylogenomic conflict across diverse datasets and analytical methods. Conversely, X-chromosome versus autosome conflicts characterize multiple independent clades that radiated during the Cenozoic. Genomic time trees reveal an accumulation of cladogenic events before and immediately after the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary, implying important roles for Cretaceous continental vicariance and the K-Pg extinction in the placental radiation. |
| Year of Publication | 2023
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| Journal | Science (New York, N.Y.)
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| Volume | 380
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| Issue | 6643
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| Pages | eabl8189
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| Date Published | 04/2023
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| ISSN | 1095-9203
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| DOI | 10.1126/science.abl8189
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| PubMed ID | 37104581
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