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Science 6 January 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5757, pp. 73 - 77
DOI: 10.1126/science.1122277
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Reports

The Late Miocene Radiation of Modern Felidae: A Genetic Assessment

Warren E. Johnson,1* Eduardo Eizirik,1,2 Jill Pecon-Slattery,1 William J. Murphy,1{dagger} Agostinho Antunes,1,3 Emma Teeling,1{ddagger} Stephen J. O'Brien1*

Modern felid species descend from relatively recent (<11 million years ago) divergence and speciation events that produced successful predatory carnivores worldwide but that have confounded taxonomic classifications. A highly resolved molecular phylogeny with divergence dates for all living cat species, derived from autosomal, X-linked, Y-linked, and mitochondrial gene segments (22,789 base pairs) and 16 fossil calibrations define eight principal lineages produced through at least 10 intercontinental migrations facilitated by sea-level fluctuations. A ghost lineage analysis indicates that available felid fossils underestimate (i.e., unrepresented basal branch length) first occurrence by an average of 76%, revealing a low representation of felid lineages in paleontological remains. The phylogenetic performance of distinct gene classes showed that Y-chromosome segments are appreciably more informative than mitochondrial DNA, X-linked, or autosomal genes in resolving the rapid Felidae species radiation.

1 Laboratory of Genomic Diversity, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD 21702–1201, USA.
2 Centro de Biologia Genômica e Molecular, Faculdade de Biociências, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Avenida Ipiranga 6681, Porto Alegre, RS 90619-900, Brazil.
3 REQUIMTE, Departamento de Química, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre, 687, 4169-007 Porto, Portugal.

{dagger} Present address: Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843–4458, USA.

{ddagger} Present address: Department of Zoology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: johnsonw{at}ncifcrf.gov (W.E.J.); obrien{at}ncifcrf.gov (S.J.O.)

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