Molecular Phylogeny of the Poeciliidae (Pisces, Teleostei)

鱼科(双鱼科)，孔雀鱼，剑尾和鼹鱼，是一科小鱼，经常被用作许多生物学研究的模式系统。研究主题从动物地理学、癌症、交配系统、自然选择和性选择、比较生态学到保护生物学。尽管它们被广泛使用，但人们对脊椎动物的系统发育或系谱关系知之甚少。纽约州立大学斯坦布鲁克分校的阿克塞尔·迈耶博士的这一项目的目的是利用线粒体和核DNA序列数据作为物种之间突变差异的衡量标准，建立这样一个孔雀科的系统发育图。线粒体基因细胞色素b的完整序列(约1100个碱基对)和一个核基因的部分序列，原癌基因X-src(约520个碱基对)，将从该家族的几个物种和属的代表中获得。线粒体和核序列数据的使用允许推断从物种到科的广泛分类水平上的系统发育关系，还提供了对由此产生的系统发育估计的独立检查。然后，这些估计将允许在这类鱼类中测试生物地理学的替代模型和进化多样化的其他方面。

Poeciliids (Pisces, Poeciliidae), the guppies, swordtails, and mollies, are a family of small fishes that are frequently used as a model system in many biological studies. Research topics range from zoogeography, cancer, mating systems, natural and sexual selection, comparative ecology, to conservation biology. Despite their widespread use, very little is known about the phylogenetic or genealogical relationships of poeciliids. The aim of this project by Dr. Axel Meyer at SUNY-Stonybrook is to establish such a phylogeny for the poeciliids using mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence data as measures of mutational differences between species. The complete sequence of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome b (about 1100 base pairs) and partial sequences of a nuclear gene, the proto-oncogene X-src (about 520 base pairs), will be obtained from several representatives of the species and genera in this family. The use of both mitochondrial and nuclear sequence data permits the inference of phylogenetic relationship across broad taxonomic levels, from species to family, and also provides independent checking of the resulting phylogenetic estimates. These estimates will then permit testing of vicariance models of biogeography and other aspects of evolutionary diversification in this group of fishes.