Department of Biology, Villanova University, Mendel Hall, 800 Lancaster Avenue, Villanova, PA 19085, USA.
Biol Lett. 2012 Dec 23;8(6):994-7. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2012.0648. Epub 2012 Sep 12.
Gliding morphologies occur in diverse vertebrate lineages in Southeast Asian rainforests, including three gecko genera, plus frogs, snakes, agamid lizards and squirrels. It has been hypothesized that repeated evolution of gliding is related to the dominance of Asian rainforest tree floras by dipterocarps. For dipterocarps to have influenced the evolution of gliding in Southeast Asian vertebrates, gliding lineages must have Eocene or later origins. However, divergence times are not known for most lineages. To investigate the temporal pattern of Asian gliding vertebrate evolution, we performed phylogenetic and molecular clock analyses. New sequence data for geckos incorporate exemplars of each gliding genus (Cosymbotus, Luperosaurus and Ptychozoon), whereas analyses of other vertebrate lineages use existing sequence data. Stem ages of most gliding vertebrates, including all geckos, cluster in the time period when dipterocarps came to dominate Asian tropical forests. These results demonstrate that a gliding/dipterocarp correlation is temporally viable, and caution against the assumption of early origins for apomorphic taxa.
滑翔形态出现在东南亚雨林的多种脊椎动物谱系中，包括三个壁虎属，加上青蛙、蛇、鬣蜥和松鼠。有人假设，滑翔的反复进化与亚洲雨林树种以龙脑香科为主有关。为了使滑翔在东南亚脊椎动物的进化中产生影响，滑翔谱系必须起源于始新世或更晚时期。然而，大多数谱系的分歧时间尚不清楚。为了研究亚洲滑翔脊椎动物进化的时间模式，我们进行了系统发育和分子钟分析。新的壁虎序列数据包括每个滑翔属的代表（Cosymbotus、Luperosaurus 和 Ptychozoon），而对其他脊椎动物谱系的分析则使用现有的序列数据。包括所有壁虎在内的大多数滑翔脊椎动物的茎部年龄都集中在龙脑香科开始主宰亚洲热带森林的时期。这些结果表明，滑翔/龙脑香科的相关性在时间上是可行的，并提醒人们不要假设特化类群的起源较早。
