Delimiting Species without Nuclear Monophyly in Madagascar's Mouse Lemurs

Delimiting Species without Nuclear Monophyly in Madagascar's Mouse Lemurs

BACKGROUND Speciation begins when populations become genetically separated through a substantial reduction in gene flow, and it is at this point that a genetically cohesive set of populations attain the sole property of species: the independent evolution of a population-level lineage. The comprehensive delimitation of species within biodiversity hotspots, regardless of their level of divergence...

Delimiting species without monophyletic gene trees.

Genetic data are frequently used to delimit species, where species status is determined on the basis of an exclusivity criterium, such as reciprocal monophyly. Not only are there numerous empirical examples of incongruence between the boundaries inferred from such data compared to other sources like morphology -- especially with recently derived species, but population genetic theory also clear...

Remarkable species diversity in Malagasy mouse lemurs (primates, Microcebus).

Phylogenetic analysis of mtDNA sequence data confirms the observation that species diversity in the world's smallest living primate (genus Microcebus) has been greatly underestimated. The description of three species new to science, and the resurrection of two others from synonymy, has been justified on morphological grounds and is supported by evidence of reproductive isolation in sympatry. Th...

Delimiting species in recent radiations.

Despite considerable effort from the systematics community, delimiting species boundaries in recent radiations remains a daunting challenge. We argue that genealogical approaches, although sometimes useful, may not solve this important problem, because recently derived species often have not had sufficient time to achieve monophyly. Instead, we suggest that population genetic approaches that re...

Female dominance in mouse lemurs