Primate phylogeny: molecular evidence from retroposons

Abstract

In these postgenomic times where aspects of functional genetics and character evolution form a focal point of human-mouse comparative research, primate phylogenetic research gained a widespread interest in evolutionary biology. Nevertheless, it also remains a controversial subject. Despite the surge in available primate sequences and corresponding phylogenetic interpretations, primate origins as well as several branching events in primate divergence are far from settled. The analysis of SINEs - short interspersed elements - as molecular cladistic markers represents a particularly interesting complement to sequence data. The following summarizes and discusses potential applications of this new approach in molecular phylogeny and outlines main results obtained with SINEs in the context of primate evolutionary research. Another molecular cladistic marker linking the tarsier with the anthropoid primates is also presented. This eliminates any possibility of confounding phylogenetic interpretations through lineage sorting phenomena and makes use of a new point of view in settling the phylogenetic relationships of the primate infraorders.