Phylogenetic analysis of 73,060 taxa corroborates major eukaryotic groups

GOLOBOFF P.; S. CATALANO; J.M. MIRANDE; C. SZUMIK; J.S. ARIAS; M. KALLERSJO, ; J.S. FARRIS

CLADISTICS (PRINT)

Blackwell Synergy

Lugar: London; Año: 2009 vol. 25 p. 211 - 230

0748-3007

Abstract.-  Obtaining a well supported schema of phylogenetic relationships among the major groups of living organisms requires considering as much taxonomic diversity as possible, but the computational cost of calculating large phylogenies has been so far a major obstacle.  We show here that the parsimony algorithms implemented in TNT can successfully process the largest phylogenetic dataset ever analyzed, consisting of molecular sequences and morphology for 73,060 eukaryotic taxa.  The trees resulting from molecules alone display a highdegree of congruence with the major taxonomic groups, with a small proportion of misplaced species; the combined dataset retrieves these groups with even higher congruence. This shows that tree-calculation algorithms effectively retrieve phylogenetic history for very large datasets, and provides at the same time strong corroboration for the major eukaryotic lineages long recognized by taxonomists.