Response: A Reassessment of the Taxonomic Position of Mesosaurs, and a Surprising Phylogeny of Early Amniotes
Response: A Reassessment of the Taxonomic Position of Mesosaurs, and a Surprising Phylogeny of Early Amniotes
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DOI：
10.3389/feart.2018.00099
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发表时间：
2018-07-25
影响因子：
2.9
通讯作者：
Froebisch, Joerg
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
MacDougall, Mark J.;Modesto, Sean P.;Froebisch, Joerg
中龙科的早期分支一直是科学家们感兴趣的，主要是因为该分支的成员是最古老的次生水生四足动物，它们的作用是大陆漂移的证据。在1988年，Gauthier和他的同事对副爬行动物进行了里程碑式的系统发育分析，发现中龙科是所有副爬行动物的姐妹分类单元。在过去的三十年里，关于中龙类系统发育位置的几项研究有助于加强它们作为最基本的副爬行动物分支的地位。中龙科的最新研究是由劳林和皮内罗进行的，他们重新评估了中龙科在早期中龙科中的系统发育位置。这项新的分析恢复了中龙是所有其他蜥脚类的姐妹分支，支持了劳林和雷斯在1995年的早期研究结果。然而，我们认为这项新研究有两个主要问题需要解决。第一个是使用过时的系统发育矩阵和作者在进行系统发育分析时明显忽略了二十多年的副爬行动物研究的事实，而第二个涉及与侧颞开窗及其在爬行动物中的极端变异性相关的问题。我们讨论了这两个问题可能会影响的结果，从这项研究中获得的，以及如何，当他们考虑到，不同的图片关于中龙科的系统发育位置重建劳林和皮内罗。
The early amniote clade Mesosauridae has long been of interest to scientists, primarily due to the members of the clade being the oldest secondarily aquatic tetrapods and their role as a line of evidence for continental drift. In the landmark phylogenetic analysis of Parareptilia by Gauthier and colleagues in 1988, Mesosauridae was found to be the sister taxon of all included parareptiles. Over the last three decades several studies regarding the phylogenetic placement of mesosaurs have helped to reinforce their position as the most basal parareptile clade. The most recent study of Mesosauridae is by Laurin and Pineiro, who reassess the phylogenetic position of the clade within early amniotes. This new analysis recovered mesosaurs as being the sister clade to all other sauropsids, supporting the results of an earlier study by Laurin and Reisz in 1995. However, we feel that there are two main issues with this new study that need to be addressed. The first is the use of an outdated phylogenetic matrix and the fact that the authors patently ignore over two decades of parareptilian research when conducting their phylogenetic analysis, whereas the second involves the problems associated with lateral temporal fenestration and its extreme variability in reptiles. We discuss how these two issues could have influenced the results that were obtained from this study, and how, when they are taken into account, a different picture regarding the phylogenetic position of Mesosauridae is reconstructed to that of Laurin and Pineiro.