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Archives of The Cold Blooded NewsThe Newsletter of the Colorado Herpetological SocietyVolume 32, Number 6; June, 2005 |
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Deformed Frogs Are Less of a Mystery Did Triassic Monster Use Suction to Feed? Sister Group Relationship of Turtles to the Bird-Crocodilian Clade Revealed by Nuclear DNACoded Proteins Fish and Wildlife Service Proposes the American Crocodile in Florida be Downlisted from Endangered to Threatened Airport Pays Millions to Buy Snake Habitat; Feds Levied Penalty for Filling Wetlands Trends in Sex Ratios of Turtles in the United States: Implications of Road Mortality Search for a Shy Serpent PREVIOUS ISSUES May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 2004 Index 2003 Index 2002 Index Earlier Issues About the Cold Blooded News CHS Home Page |
Sister Group Relationship of Turtles to the Bird-Crocodilian Clade Revealed by Nuclear DNACoded ProteinsNaoyuki Iwabe, Yuichiro Hara, Yoshinori Kumazawa, Kaori Shibamoto, Yumi Saito, Takashi Miyata, and Kazutaka KatohMolecular Biology and Evolution 22(4): 810813 (2005)From a News Release by the Center for North American Herpetology, Lawrence, Kansas, 14 April 2005. Abstract: The phylogenetic position of turtles is a currently controversial issue. Recent molecular studies rejected a traditional view that turtles are basal living reptiles (Hedges, S. B., and L. L. Poling. 1999. A molecular phylogeny. Science 83:9981001; Kumazawa, Y., and M. Nishida. 1999. Complete mitochondrial DNA sequences of the Green Turtle and Bluetail Mole Skink show statistical evidence for archosaurian affinity of turtles. Mol. Biol. Evol. 16:784792). Instead, these studies grouped turtles with birds and crocodiles. The relationship among turtles, birds, and crocodiles remained unclear to date. To resolve this issue, we have cloned and sequenced two nuclear genes encoding the catalytic subunit of DNA polymerase a and glycinamide ribonucleotide synthetase-aminoimidazole ribonucleotide synthetase-glycinamide ribonucleotide formyltransferase from amniotes and an amphibian. The amino acid sequences of these proteins were subjected to a phylogenetic analysis based on the maximum likelihood method. The resulting tree showed that turtles are the sister group to a monophyletic cluster of archosaurs (birds and crocodiles). All other possible tree topologies were significantly rejected.A copy of this article can be downloaded gratis by visiting the CNAH PDF Library at http://www.cnah.org/cnah_pdf.asp. CNAH Note: The above paper is yet another that supports the higher-level taxonomy as shown on the CNAH web site at http://www.cnah.org/taxonomy.asp: For those that use a traditional named hierarchy, turtles are a distinct Class. Copyright © 1998 - 2006, Colorado Herpetological Society. All rights reserved. | ||
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