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Molecular and Morphological Phylogenies of Ruminantia and the Alternative Position of the Moschidae

The ruminants constitute the largest group of ungulates, with >190 species, and its distribution is widespread throughout all continents except Australia and Antarctica. Six families are traditionally recognized within the suborder Ruminantia: Antilocapridae (pronghorns), Bovidae (cattle, sheep, and antelopes), Cervidae (deer), Giraffidae (giraffes and okapis), Moschidae (musk deer), and Tragulidae (chevrotains). The interrelationships of the families have been an area of controversy among morphology, palaeontology, and molecular studies, and almost all possible evolutionary scenarios have been proposed in the literature.

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The phylogeny of Cetartiodactyla: The importance of dense taxon sampling, missing data, and the remarkable promise of cytochrome b to provide reliable species-level phylogenies

We perform Bayesian phylogenetic analyses on cytochrome b sequences from 264 of the 290 extant cetartiodactyl mammals (whales plus even-toed ungulates) and two recently extinct species, the ‘Mouse Goat’ and the ‘Irish Elk’. Previous primary analyses have included only a small portion of the species diversity within Cetartiodactyla, while a complete supertree analysis lacks resolution and branch lengths limiting its utility for comparative studies. The benefits of using a single-gene approach include rapid phylogenetic estimates for a large number of

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A complete estimate of the phylogenetic relationships in Ruminantia: a dated species-level supertree of the extant ruminants

This paper presents the first complete estimate of the phylogenetic relationships among all 197 species of extant and recently extinct ruminants combining morphological, ethological and molecular information. The composite tree is derived by applying matrix representation using parsimony analysis to 164 previous partial estimates, and is remarkably well resolved, containing 159 nodes (>80% of the potential nodes in the completely resolved phylogeny). Bremer decay index has been used to indicate the degree of certainty associated with each clade. The ages

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