Complete mitochondrial genome sequences of two extinct moas clarify ratite evolution

Alan Cooper (), Carles Lalueza-Fox, Simon Anderson, Andrew Rambaut, Jeremy Austin and Ryk Ward
Additional contact information
Alan Cooper: University of Oxford
Carles Lalueza-Fox: University of Oxford
Simon Anderson: University of Oxford
Andrew Rambaut: University of Oxford
Jeremy Austin: The Natural History Museum
Ryk Ward: University of Oxford

Nature, 2001, vol. 409, issue 6821, 704-707

Abstract: Abstract The origin of the ratites, large flightless birds from the Southern Hemisphere, along with their flighted sister taxa, the South American tinamous, is central to understanding the role of plate tectonics in the distributions of modern birds and mammals. Defining the dates of ratite divergences is also critical for determining the age of modern avian orders1,2,3,4,5,6. To resolve the ratite phylogeny and provide biogeographical data to examine these issues, we have here determined the first complete mitochondrial genome sequences of any extinct taxa— two New Zealand moa genera—along with a 1,000-base-pair sequence from an extinct Madagascan elephant-bird. For comparative data, we also generated 12 kilobases of contiguous sequence from the kiwi, cassowary, emu and two tinamou genera. This large dataset allows statistically precise estimates of molecular divergence dates and these support a Late Cretaceous vicariant speciation of ratite taxa, followed by the subsequent dispersal of the kiwi to New Zealand. This first molecular view of the break-up of Gondwana provides a new temporal framework for speciation events within other Gondwanan biota and can be used to evaluate competing biogeographical hypotheses.

Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/35055536 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:409:y:2001:i:6821:d:10.1038_35055536

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/35055536

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().