A combined phylogeney of penguins (Aves: Sphenisciformes)

GIANNINI, N.P.; BERTELLI, S.

Paris

Congreso; 23rd Anual Meeting of the Willi Hennig Society "Phylogenetics and Evolutionary Biology??; 2004

Muse´um national d?Histoire naturelle and CNRS (Centre National de la recherche Scientifique)

Penguins are a homogeneous group of austral marine birds that exhibit remarkable adaptations for diving. Phylogenetic relationships among penguins received little attention. We developed a morphological matrix including 151 morphological characters of osteology (63 characters), myology (15), integument (66), and breeding (7 characters) scored in 18 extant forms (all currently recognized species plus one distinct subspecies). A gaviiform was placed at the root, and 11 species of representative procellariiform groups completed the outgroup. A heuristic parsimony analysis under equal weights was performed. We also compiled DNA sequences available in GenBank for the mitochondrial genes 12S rDNA and cytochrome b. We include the two data partitions in a combined analysis under direct optimization. Both analyses recovered monophyly of Sphenisciformes and all the traditional polytypic genera. Morphological characters performed optimally at the ordinal and generic level, also providing resolution and varying degrees of support at the supra-and intrageneric levels. The comparison of molecular and morphological results indicates that the most significant problem in the phylogeny of extant penguins is rooting the ingroup. The mutual interaction of molecular and morphological data decreases the ambiguity regarding the placement of the root and provides a resolved phylogeny of extant penguins.