Speciation dynamics in the SE Asian tropics : Putting a time perspective on the phylogeny and biogeography of Sundaland tree squirrels, Sundasciurus

• Tropical rainforests are well known for their extraordinarily high levels of biodiversity. The origin of this species richness is still debated. For instance, the museum hypothesis states that over evolutionary time more and more species will accumulate with relatively few extinctions. In contrast, the Pleistocene diversification model argues that during the last 2 million years, climatic factors (glaciations) caused environmental changes that drove isolation and vicariant speciation events. In this study, we construct a molecular phylogeny of the Sundaland (Malay Peninsula, Sumata, Borneo, Palawan) and Greater Mindanao (Mindanao, Samar, Leyte) tree squirrels (genus Sundasciurus). Our results show that most speciation events in this forest dependent taxon occurred before the Pleistocene and that even the timing of intra-specific splits among populations from different landmasses are relatively old. Additionally, we found unexpectedly high divergence within and between highland populations of S. tenuis on Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, highlighting the importance of Pliocene events in both speciation and within species divergences in this region. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Cytochrome b

Fib6

c-myc

FTH

POR

GBG

HMG1

Sunda shelf

Pleistocene species pump

Molecular dating

RY coding

Biology

Biologi

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)