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  • Evidence for a recent origin of penguins

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    92177_1.pdf (275.1Kb)
    Author(s)
    Subramanian, Sankar
    Beans-Picon, Gabrielle
    Swaminathan, Siva K
    Millar, Craig D
    Lambert, David M
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Lambert, David M.
    Sankarasubramanian, Sankar
    Year published
    2013
    Metadata
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    Abstract
    Penguins are a remarkable group of birds, with the 18 extant species living in diverse climatic zones from the tropics to Antarctica. The timing of the origin of these extant penguins remains controversial. Previous studies based on DNA sequences and fossil records have suggested widely differing times for the origin of the group. This has given rise to widely differing biogeographic narratives about their evolution. To resolve this problem, we sequenced five introns from 11 species representing all genera of living penguins. Using these data and other available DNA sequences, together with the ages of multiple penguin fossils ...
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    Penguins are a remarkable group of birds, with the 18 extant species living in diverse climatic zones from the tropics to Antarctica. The timing of the origin of these extant penguins remains controversial. Previous studies based on DNA sequences and fossil records have suggested widely differing times for the origin of the group. This has given rise to widely differing biogeographic narratives about their evolution. To resolve this problem, we sequenced five introns from 11 species representing all genera of living penguins. Using these data and other available DNA sequences, together with the ages of multiple penguin fossils to calibrate the molecular clock, we estimated the age of the most recent common ancestor of extant penguins to be 20.4 Myr (17.0-23.8 Myr). This time is half of the previous estimates based on molecular sequence data. Our results suggest that most of the major groups of extant penguins diverged 11-16 Ma. This overlaps with the sharp decline in Antarctic temperatures that began approximately 12 Ma, suggesting a possible relationship between climate change and penguin evolution.
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    Journal Title
    Biology letters
    Volume
    9
    Issue
    6
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2013.0748
    Copyright Statement
    © 2013 Royal Society. This is the author-manuscript version of this paper. Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Please refer to the journal website for access to the definitive, published version.
    Subject
    Phylogeny and Comparative Analysis
    Biological Sciences
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/57567
    Collection
    • Journal articles

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